| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: not shed tears for you to see; only--I will not see you again.
. . . Ah! I cannot go on, my heart is breaking . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I have been sitting
benumbed and stupid for some moments. Dear love, I do not find
that any feeling of pride rises against you; you are so kind-
hearted, so open; you would find it impossible to hurt me or to
deceive me; and you will tell me the truth, however cruel it may
be. Do you wish me to encourage your confession? Well, then, heart
of mine, I shall find comfort in a woman's thought. Has not the
youth of your being been mine, your sensitive, wholly gracious,
beautiful, and delicate youth? No woman shall find henceforth the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: eaten half a fish and some portion of a French pate, he felt an
irresistible longing for bed. Perhaps he was suffering from a double
intoxication. So he pulled off the counterpane, opened the bed,
undressed in a pretty dressing-room, and lay down to meditate on
destiny.
"I forgot poor Carmagnola," said he; "but my cook and butler will have
provided for him."
At this juncture, a waiting-woman came in, lightly humming an air from
the /Barbiere/. She tossed a woman's dress on a chair, a whole outfit
for the night, and said as she did so:
"Here they come!"
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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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: was not for the law in them, it was to spy out your faither's nakedness,
a fine employment in a son. You're splairging; you're running at lairge
in life like a wild nowt. It's impossible you should think any longer
of coming to the Bar. You're not fit for it; no splairger is. And
another thing: son of mines or no son of mines, you have flung fylement
in public on one of the Senators of the Coallege of Justice, and I would
make it my business to see that ye were never admitted there yourself.
There is a kind of a decency to be observit. Then comes the next of it
- what am I to do with ye next? Ye'll have to find some kind of a
trade, for I'll never support ye in idleset. What do ye fancy ye'll be
fit for? The pulpit? Na, they could never get diveenity into that
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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 The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: With a more fervid and inherent zeal
Than I have in my story to remember,
Or gave your necks to folly's conquering foot,
Or flung yourselves with an unstudied aim,
Less frequently than I. Never mind that.
Man's little house of days will hold enough,
Sometimes, to make him wish it were not his,
But it will not hold all. Things that are dead
Are best without it, and they own their death
By virtue of their dying. Let them go, --
But think you not the world is ashes yet,
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