| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: had gold sleeve-buttons in his immaculate wristbands.
"Dear old fellow! He couldn't have got himself up with
more care if he'd been going a-wooing," said Jo to herself, and
then a sudden thought born of the words made her blush so dreadfully
that she had to drop her ball, and go down after it to hide her face.
The maneuver did not succeed as well as she expected, however,
for though just in the act of setting fire to a funeral
pyre, the Professor dropped his torch, metaphorically speaking,
and made a dive after the little blue ball. Of course they
bumped their heads smartly together, saw stars, and both came
up flushed and laughing, without the ball, to resume their seats,
Little Women |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: "Valentin is quite good enough for me."
Madame de Cintre was silent for a short time. "He is not good enough for me,"
she said at last. "I wish he would do something."
"What can he do?" asked Newman.
"Nothing. Yet he is very clever."
"It is a proof of cleverness," said Newman, "to be happy
without doing anything."
"I don't think Valentin is happy, in reality. He is clever, generous, brave;
but what is there to show for it? To me there is something sad
in his life, and sometimes I have a sort of foreboding about him.
I don't know why, but l fancy he will have some great trouble--
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: it at the head of Boyne's unfinished letter. In the library she
had found awaiting her a small neutral-tinted man with a bald
head and gold eye-glasses, and it sent a strange tremor through
her to know that this was the person to whom her husband's last
known thought had been directed.
Parvis, civilly, but without vain preamble,--in the manner of a
man who has his watch in his hand,--had set forth the object of
his visit. He had "run over" to England on business, and finding
himself in the neighborhood of Dorchester, had not wished to
leave it without paying his respects to Mrs. Boyne; without
asking her, if the occasion offered, what she meant to do about
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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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: PUCELLE.
Once I encounter'd him, and thus I said:
'Thou maiden youth, be vanquish'd by a maid.'
But, with a proud majestical high scorn,
He answer'd thus: 'Young Talbot was not born
To be the pillage of a giglot wench:'
So, rushing in the bowels of the French,
He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.
BURGUNDY.
Doubtless he would have made a noble knight:
See, where he lies inhearsed in the arms
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