| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: return to Paris.
This system of "pickings" was, alas! the cause of Paul-Louis Carter's
assassination; he committed the mistake of advertising the sale of his
estate and allowing it to be known that he should take away his wife,
on whom a number of the Tonsards of Lorraine were battening. Fearing
to lose Madame des Aigues, the marauders on the estate forbore to cut
the young trees, unless pushed to extremities by finding no branches
within reach of shears fastened to long poles. In the interests of
robbery, they did as little harm as they could; although, during the
last years of Madame's life, the habit of cutting wood became more and
more barefaced. On certain clear nights not less than two hundred
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: of your more fortunate little playmates has a costly China one,
you should treat her with a show of kindness nevertheless.
And you ought not to attempt to make a forcible swap with her unless
your conscience would justify you in it, and you know you are able
to do it.
You ought never to take your little brother's "chewing-gum" away
from him by main force; it is better to rope him in with the promise
of the first two dollars and a half you find floating down the
river on a grindstone. In the artless simplicity natural to this
time of life, he will regard it as a perfectly fair transaction.
In all ages of the world this eminently plausible fiction has lured
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: watches bought on credit, and pawned at the Mont-de-Piete. For my
part, I had said nothing of the six shirts and all necessary linen,
which cost me no more than the pleasure of asking for them from a
forewoman in a shop whom I had treated to Musard's during the
carnival.
Marcas accepted everything, thanking us no more than he ought. He only
inquired as to the means by which we had got possession of such
riches, and we made him laugh for the last time. We looked on our
Marcas as shipowners, when they have exhausted their credit and every
resource at their command it fit out a vessel, must look on it as it
puts out to sea.
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: more reasonable in the expense, and, as some say, also, the vessels
are better sea boats, has been the reason why so many passengers do
not go or come by the way of Harwich as formerly were wont to do;
insomuch that the stage coaches between this place and London,
which ordinarily went twice or three times a week, are now entirely
laid down, and the passengers are left to hire coaches on purpose,
take post-horses, or hire horses to Colchester, as they find most
convenient.
The account of a petrifying quality in the earth here, though some
will have it to be in the water of a spring hard by, is very
strange. They boast that their town is walled and their streets
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