| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: speech, if I may so term it, with which I thoroughly agreed, was
the part about my brother. Nothing that you could possibly say
could be too bad for him. I regard Henry as infamous, absolutely
infamous. But I am bound to state, as you were remarking, Jane,
that he is excellent company, and he has one of the best cooks in
London, and after a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's
own relations.
LADY HUNSTANTON [to MISS WORSLEY] Now, do come, dear, and make
friends with Mrs. Arbuthnot. She is one of the good, sweet, simple
people you told us we never admitted into society. I am sorry to
say Mrs. Arbuthnot comes very rarely to me. But that is not my
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: blacks, mulattoes, whites, and Indian dancing-girls,--orgies and
adventures in many lands, completely effaced all recollection of his
cousin, of Saumur, of the house, the bench, the kiss snatched in the
dark passage. He remembered only the little garden shut in with
crumbling walls, for it was there he learned the fate that had
overtaken him; but he rejected all connection with his family. His
uncle was an old dog who had filched his jewels; Eugenie had no place
in his heart nor in his thoughts, though she did have a place in his
accounts as a creditor for the sum of six thousand francs.
Such conduct and such ideas explain Charles Grandet's silence. In the
Indies, at St. Thomas, on the coast of Africa, at Lisbon, and in the
Eugenie Grandet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: it's fate. Fate! You are so frank so splendid!
"I'm taking this calmly now," he said, almost as if he
apologized, "because I'm a little stunned."
Then he asked, "Tell me! has this man, has he DARED to make love
to you?"
Ann Veronica had a vicious moment. "I wish he had," she said.
"But--"
The long inconsecutive conversation by that time was getting on
her nerves. "When one wants a thing more than anything else in
the world," she said with outrageous frankness, "one naturally
wishes one had it."
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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 When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: I will tell Mr. Wilson."
But as the girl turned toward the doorway, the person in question
appeared in it, and raised her veil. I was perfectly paralyzed.
It was Bella! Bella in a fur coat and a veil, with the most
tragic eyes I ever saw and entirely white except for a dab of
rouge in the middle of each cheek. We stared at each other
without speech. The maid turned and went down the hall, and with
that Bella came over to me and clutched me by the arm.
"Who was being carried out into that ambulance?" she demanded,
glaring at me with the most awful intensity.
"I'm sure I don't know, Bella," I said, wriggling away from her
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