| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: in themselves, but still maintained that, as a family connexion,
as good company, as those who would collect good company around them,
they had their value. Anne smiled and said,
"My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever,
well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation;
that is what I call good company."
"You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company;
that is the best. Good company requires only birth, education,
and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice.
Birth and good manners are essential; but a little learning is
by no means a dangerous thing in good company; on the contrary,
Persuasion |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: wants of my own soul, and busying myself with the concerns of the
Athenians; therefore I hold my ears and tear myself away from him. And he
is the only person who ever made me ashamed, which you might think not to
be in my nature, and there is no one else who does the same. For I know
that I cannot answer him or say that I ought not to do as he bids, but when
I leave his presence the love of popularity gets the better of me. And
therefore I run away and fly from him, and when I see him I am ashamed of
what I have confessed to him. Many a time have I wished that he were dead,
and yet I know that I should be much more sorry than glad, if he were to
die: so that I am at my wit's end.
And this is what I and many others have suffered from the flute-playing of
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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 The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Henri carried him in and laid him in the little passage, very reverently.
Then he went below.
"Where is Rene?" Sara Lee asked from the darkness.
"A foolish boy," said Henri, a catch in his throat. "He is, I think,
watching these fiends of the air, from some shelter."
"There is no shelter," shivered the girl.
He groped for her hand in the darkness, and so they stood, hand in hand,
like two children, waiting for what might come.
It was not until the thing was over that he told her. He had gone up
first and so that she would not happen on his silent figure unwarned,
had carried Rene to the open upper floor, where he lay, singularly
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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 At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: evening, when the drawing-room, furnished with what Madame Guillaume
called "everything handsome," was deserted, and while she flitted from
the table to the chimney-piece, from the candelabra to the tall
candlesticks, hastily blowing out the wax-lights, the worthy draper,
who was always clear-sighted when money was in question, called
Augustine to him, and seating her on his knee, spoke as follows:--
"My dear child, you shall marry your Sommervieux since you insist; you
may, if you like, risk your capital in happiness. But I am not going
to be hoodwinked by the thirty thousand francs to be made by spoiling
good canvas. Money that is lightly earned is lightly spent. Did I not
hear that hare-brained youngster declare this evening that money was
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