| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: legal profession, it is necessary to enter here into some details
which will serve to reveal his life and character, and which will, at
the same time, display some of the wheels of the great machine known
as Justice. M. Popinot was classed by the three Presidents who
successively controlled the Court of the Seine under the category of
possible judges, the stuff of which judges are made. Thus classified,
he did not achieve the reputation for capacity which his previous
labors had deserved. Just as a painter is invariably included in a
category as a landscape painter, a portrait painter, a painter of
history, of sea pieces, or of genre, by a public consisting of
artists, connoisseurs, and simpletons, who, out of envy, or critical
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: thought she considerably reddened. At all events she laughed out.
Then "I was afraid of it!" she very honestly answered.
"But doesn't he know? Has he given no sign?"
"Every sign in life--he came straight back to her. He did
everything to get her to listen to him, but she hasn't the smallest
idea of it."
"Has he seen her as she is now?" I presently and just a trifle
awkwardly enquired.
"Indeed he has, and borne it like a hero. He told me all about
it."
"How much you've all been through!" I found occasion to remark.
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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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: flogged by Rector Williams. He used to insist that all his bad
schoolfellows had died early, a belief amusingly characteristic of
the man's consistent optimism. In 1846 the mother and son
proceeded to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where they were soon joined by
the father, now reduced to inaction and to play something like
third fiddle in his narrow household. The emancipation of the
slaves had deprived them of their last resource beyond the half-pay
of a captain; and life abroad was not only desirable for the sake
of Fleeming's education, it was almost enforced by reasons of
economy. But it was, no doubt, somewhat hard upon the captain.
Certainly that perennial boy found a companion in his son; they
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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 Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: SIMONE. What! The son
Of that great Lord of Florence whose dim towers
Like shadows silvered by the wandering moon
I see from out my casement every night!
Sir Guido Bardi, you are welcome here,
Twice welcome. For I trust my honest wife,
Most honest if uncomely to the eye,
Hath not with foolish chatterings wearied you,
As is the wont of women.
GUIDO. Your gracious lady,
Whose beauty is a lamp that pales the stars
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