| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: "Monsieur le vicomte," she said when she saw him, rising and taking
his hand to lead him to his father's bed, "there died your father,--a
man of honor; he died without reproach from his own conscience. His
spirit is there. Surely he groaned in heaven when he saw his son
degraded by imprisonment for debt. Under the old monarchy that stain
could have been spared you by obtaining a lettre de cachet and
shutting you up for a few days in a military prison.--But you are
here; you stand before your father, who hears you. You know all that
you did before you were sent to that ignoble prison. Will you swear to
me before your father's shade, and in presence of God who sees all,
that you have done no dishonorable act; that your debts are the result
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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: In this way our hero delayed from day to day broaching a subject
which he had very much at heart. Meanwhile, however, he was growing
practically familiar with it; in other words, he had called again,
three times, on Madame de Cintre. On only two of these occasions
had he found her at home, and on each of them she had other visitors.
Her visitors were numerous and extremely loquacious,
and they exacted much of their hostess's attention.
She found time, however, to bestow a little of it on Newman,
in an occasional vague smile, the very vagueness of which pleased him,
allowing him as it did to fill it out mentally, both at the time
and afterwards, with such meanings as most pleased him.
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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 Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: from the 'type' of the Military Secretary to the Viceroy to that of
Ali Buksh, who sold raw turquoises in a little carved shop in the
bazaar. I should like to quote more of her letters, but if I did I
should find nothing about Colonel Horace Innes, who represented--she
often acknowledged to herself--her only serious interest. Miss
Anderson took the world at its own light valuation as it came; but
she had a scale of recognitions and acceptances, which she kept
apart for the very few, and Innes had claimed a place in it the
first time they met. It seems a trifle ungrateful that she should
have left him out, since it was he who gave her a standard by which
to measure the frivolity of Simla. He went to gymkhanas--if he knew
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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 The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: mouse's bedroom, where she
slept in a little box bed!
Mrs. Tittlemouse was a most
terribly tidy particular little
mouse, always sweeping and
dusting the soft sandy floors.
Sometimes a beetle lost its way
in the passages.
"Shuh! shuh! little dirty feet!"
said Mrs. Tittlemouse, clattering
her dustpan.
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