| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: with me. His face had struck me. He had one of those heroic heads,
stamped with the seal of warfare, and on which the battles of Napoleon
are written. Besides, he had that frank, good-humored expression which
always impresses me favorably. He was without doubt one of those
troopers who are surprised at nothing, who find matter for laughter in
the contortions of a dying comrade, who bury or plunder him quite
light-heartedly, who stand intrepidly in the way of bullets;--in fact,
one of those men who waste no time in deliberation, and would not
hesitate to make friends with the devil himself. After looking very
attentively at the proprietor of the menagerie getting out of his box,
my companion pursed up his lips with an air of mockery and contempt,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: I shuddered with horror; for just then, by the light of a tall torch
and two altar candles, I saw distinctly that this woman was fresh from
the graveyard. She had no hair. I turned to fly. She raised her
fleshless arm and encircled me with a band of iron set with spikes,
and as she raised it a cry went up all about us, the cry of millions
of voices--the shouting of the dead!
"It is my purpose to make thee happy for ever," she said. "Thou art my
son."
We were sitting before the hearth, the ashes lay cold upon it; the old
shrunken woman grasped my hand so tightly in hers that I could not
choose but stay. I looked fixedly at her, striving to read the story
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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 Red Seal by Natalie Sumner Lincoln: burglar as Jimmie Turnbull."
"Colonel McIntyre," Penfield turned over several papers until he
found the one he sought. "Mrs. Brewster has testified that while
you and she were sitting in the reception room, Mr. Clymer opened
the window. Did you close it on leaving the room?"
McIntyre reflected before answering. "I cannot remember doing so,"
he stated finally. "Clymer was in rather a hurry to leave, and
after bidding Mrs. Brewster good night, we went straight out to
the car and I drove him to the Saratoga."
"Then you cannot swear to the window having been re-locked?"
"I cannot."
The Red Seal |
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 An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: the boats from the water and carry them round. But the chief sort
of obstacle was a consequence of the late high winds. Every two or
three hundred yards a tree had fallen across the river, and usually
involved more than another in its fall.
Often there was free water at the end, and we could steer round the
leafy promontory and hear the water sucking and bubbling among the
twigs. Often, again, when the tree reached from bank to bank,
there was room, by lying close, to shoot through underneath, canoe
and all. Sometimes it was necessary to get out upon the trunk
itself and pull the boats across; and sometimes, when the stream
was too impetuous for this, there was nothing for it but to land
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