| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: always be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself. Yegor
listened attentively, and obviously quite took in Levin's idea,
but by way of assent to it he enunciated, greatly to Levin's
surprise, the observation that when he had lived with good
masters he had always been satisfied with his masters, and now
was perfectly satisfied with his employer, though he was a
Frenchman.
"Wonderfully good-hearted fellow!" thought Levin.
"Well, but you yourself, Yegor, when you got married, did you
love your wife?"
"Ay! and why not?" responded Yegor.
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: one should come, should step in between! He carried the letter into the
bedroom and gave it to her. "Bring me the lamp nearer," she said. When
she had read it she asked for her desk.
Then Gregory sat down in the lamp-light on the other side of the curtain,
and heard the pencil move on the paper. When he looked round the curtain
she was lying on the pillow musing. The open letter lay at her side; she
glanced at it with soft eyes. The man with the languid eyelids must have
been strangely moved before his hand set down those words:
"Let me come back to you! My darling, let me put my hand round you, and
guard you from all the world. As my wife they shall never touch you. I
have learnt to love you more wisely, more tenderly, than of old; you shall
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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 Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: any money worries. But I've got to remember this. It took work
to make a man of me before, and it will take work to keep me going
the way I intend to go, if I get my freedom."
Sometime during the night Bassett saw that the light was still
burning by the davenport, and went in. Dick was asleep with a
volume of Whitman open on his chest, and Bassett saw what he had
been reading.
'You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you short-lived ennuis;
Ah, think not you shall finally triumph, my real self has yet to come forth.
It shall march forth over-mastering, till all lie beneath me,
It shall stand up, the soldier of unquestioned victory."
The Breaking Point |
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 Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: the various happenings of existence. He probably
wondered more about the fact of his marriage with
Alma Bennet than anything else, although he never
betrayed his wonder. He was always painfully
anxious to please his wife, of whom he stood in
awe. Now he hastened to reply: "Why, no, Alma;
of course I won't."
"Because," said Alma, "I haven't come to my
time of life, through all the trials I've had, to be
taking any chances of breaking my bones over any
miserable, furry, four-footed animal that wouldn't
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