| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: Rockingham, had been the youngest soldier in the Confederate army,
having appeared on the field of battle with a sword in one hand and a
milk-bottle in the other. The art editor, Roncesvalles Sykes, was a
third cousin to a nephew of Jefferson Davis. Miss Lavinia Terhune,
the colonel's stenographer and typewriter, had an aunt who had once
been kissed by Stonewall Jackson. Tommy Webster, the head office-boy,
got his job by having recited Father Ryan's poems, complete, at the
commencement exercises of the Toombs City High School. The girls who
wrapped and addressed the magazines were members of old Southern
families in Reduced Circumstances. The cashier was a scrub named
Hawkins, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who had recommendations and a bond
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more
than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation
there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties
calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic.
"Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's
statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was
beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in
the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we
call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad
impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age
when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our
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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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: believe I have given her an excellent chance of regaining her
husband's affection. All the assistance I need of you is to play the
Colonel." She pointed to the Baron's friend, and the Countess smiled.
"Well, madame, do you at last know the name of the unknown?" asked
Martial, with an air of pique, to the Countess when he saw her alone.
"Yes," said Madame de Vaudremont, looking him in the face.
Her features expressed as much roguery as fun. The smile which gave
life to her lips and cheeks, the liquid brightness of her eyes, were
like the will-o'-the-wisp which leads travelers astray. Martial, who
believed that she still loved him, assumed the coquetting graces in
which a man is so ready to lull himself in the presence of the woman
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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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: extent; and as I have the most interesting matter for my book, bar
accidents, I ought to get all I have laid out and a profit. But,
second (what I own I never considered till too late), there was the
danger of collisions, of damages and heavy repairs, of disablement,
towing, and salvage; indeed, the cruise might have turned round and
cost me double. Nor will this danger be quite over till I hear the
yacht is in San Francisco; for though I have shaken the dust of her
deck from my feet, I fear (as a point of law) she is still mine
till she gets there.
From my point of view, up to now the cruise has been a wonderful
success. I never knew the world was so amusing. On the last
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