| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: "A disgraceful one--which you will perhaps understand, and pity."
"You, disgraced?"
"Yes, I, Comte Paz; I am madly in love with a girl who travels all
over France with the Bouthor family,--people who have the rival circus
to Franconi; but they play only at fairs. I have made the director at
the Cirque-Olympique engage her."
"Is she handsome?"
"To my thinking," said Paz, in a melancholy tone. "Malaga (that's her
stage name) is strong, active, and supple. Why do I prefer her to all
other women in the world?--well, I can't tell you. When I look at her,
with her black hair tied with a blue satin ribbon, floating on her
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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 Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: Dear boy! What a blow his sweet, sympathetic little note had been! Of
course they quite understood; but it was most unfortunate.
"It would have been such a point, having him," said Josephine.
"And he would have enjoyed it so," said Constantia, not thinking what she
was saying.
However, as soon as he got back he was coming to tea with his aunties.
Cyril to tea was one of their rare treats.
"Now, Cyril, you mustn't be frightened of our cakes. Your Auntie Con and I
bought them at Buszard's this morning. We know what a man's appetite is.
So don't be ashamed of making a good tea."
Josephine cut recklessly into the rich dark cake that stood for her winter
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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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: "Suppose we get to Innsbruck and Laibach and Trieste," they said,
"it isn't an end!" Lord Northcliffe, I am told, came away from
Italy with the conviction that the war would last six years.
There is the clearest evidence that nearly everyone is anxious to
get out of the war now. Nobody at all, except perhaps a few
people who may be called to account, and a handful of greedy
profit-seekers, wants to keep it going. Quietly perhaps and
unobtrusively, everyone I know is now trying to find the way out
of the war, and I am convinced that the same is the case in
Germany. That is what makes the Peace-at-any-price campaign so
exasperating. It is like being chased by clamorous geese across
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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 Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: things in thy course like a courtesan eager for pleasure in her days
of splendor, thou hast steeped thyself in blood like some queen
stupefied by empery. Dost thou not remember to have been dull and
heavy at times, and the sudden marvelous lucidity of other moments; as
when Art emerges from an orgy? Oh! poet, painter, and singer, lover of
splendid ceremonies and protector of the arts, was thy friendship for
art perchance a caprice, that so thou shouldst sleep beneath
magnificent canopies? Was there not a day when, in thy fantastic
pride, though chastity and humility were prescribed to thee, thou
hadst brought all things beneath thy feet, and set thy foot on the
necks of princes; when earthly dominion, and wealth, and the mind of
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