| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: Mme. Vauquer as "my dear," and promised her two more boarders,
the Baronne de Vaumerland and the widow of a colonel, the late
Comte de Picquoisie, who were about to leave a boarding-house in
the Marais, where the terms were higher than at the Maison
Vauquer. Both these ladies, moreover, would be very well to do
when the people at the War Office had come to an end of their
formalities. "But Government departments are always so dilatory,"
the lady added.
After dinner the two widows went together up to Mme. Vauquer's
room, and had a snug little chat over some cordial and various
delicacies reserved for the mistress of the house. Mme. Vauquer's
Father Goriot |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: been drunk ever since the soup course, was beginning little by
little to warm the guests into a state of nervous exaltation. They
ended by paying less attention to decorum than before. The women
began leaning on their elbows amid the disordered table
arrangements, while the men, in order to breathe more easily, pushed
their chairs back, and soon the black coats appeared buried between
the light-colored bodices, and bare shoulders, half turned toward
the table, began to gleam as soft as silk. It was too hot, and the
glare of the candles above the table grew ever yellower and duller.
Now and again, when a women bent forward, the back of her neck
glowed golden under a rain of curls, and the glitter of a diamond
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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 Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: It bore out my theory of the sound, which had been for all the
world like the bumping of a metallic object down a flight of
steps. The four steps had been skipped. I reasoned that an iron
bar, for instance, would do something of the sort,--strike
two or three steps, end down, then turn over, jumping a few
stairs, and landing with a thud.
Iron bars, however, do not fall down-stairs in the middle of the
night alone. Coupled with the figure on the veranda the agency
by which it climbed might be assumed. But--and here was the
thing that puzzled me most--the doors were all fastened that
morning, the windows unmolested, and the particular door from
The Circular Staircase |
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 Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: Peoples imperial, mighty,
Masterful, challenging fate,
The tread of your cohorts shakes the hills--
But lo! ye are not great!
Nations that swarm and murmur,
Ye are moths that flutter and climb--
Ye are whirling gnats, ye are swirling bees,
Tossed in the winds of time!
Earth that is flushed with glory,
A marvelous world ye are!
But lo! in the midst of a million stars
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