| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use it for your closer contact?
These with a thousand small deliberations
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: table with twisted legs, a pretty carpet on the floor, near the table
a single chair; and that was all. On the table, however, were flowers
and embroidery; in a recess at the farther end of the room was the
narrow little bed where Juana dreamed. Above the bed were three
pictures; and near the pillow a crucifix, with a holy water basin and
a prayer, printed in letters of gold and framed. Flowers exhaled their
perfume faintly; the candles cast a tender light; all was calm and
pure and sacred. The dreamy thoughts of Juana, but above all Juana
herself, had communicated to all things her own peculiar charm; her
soul appeared to shine there, like the pearl in its matrix. Juana,
dressed in white, beautiful with naught but her own beauty, laying
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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 Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: women an intuitive knowledge of the meaning of certain changes of
countenance?
"What! you wish to be my friend no longer?" she broke in at the
first words, and a divine red surging like new blood under the
transparent skin, lent brightness to her eyes. "As a reward for
my generosity, you would dishonour me? Just reflect a little. I
myself have thought much over this; and I think always for us
BOTH. There is such a thing as a woman's loyalty, and we can no
more fail in it than you can fail in honour. _I_ cannot blind
myself. If I am yours, how, in any sense, can I be M. de
Langeais's wife? Can you require the sacrifice of my position,
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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 Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: she had taken, the end she had made to her blunder. She had only
to get through this, to solace Manning as much as she could, to
put such clumsy plasterings on his wounds as were possible, and
then, anyhow, she would be free--free to put her fate to the
test. She made a few protests, a few excuses for her action in
accepting him, a few lame explanations, but he did not heed them
or care for them. Then she realized that it was her business to
let Manning talk and impose his own interpretations upon the
situation so far as he was concerned. She did her best to do
this. But about his unknown rival he was acutely curious.
He made her tell him the core of the difficulty.
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