| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: "And YOU talk of practising on fears," she bravely pushed on.
"Yes, there's no doubt I'm a great scoundrel."
His patroness met his eyes - it was clear she was in straits. Then
she thrust out her money at him. "Mr. Moreen desired me to give
you this on account."
"I'm much obliged to Mr. Moreen, but we HAVE no account."
"You won't take it?"
"That leaves me more free," said Pemberton.
"To poison my darling's mind?" groaned Mrs. Moreen.
"Oh your darling's mind -!" the young man laughed.
She fixed him a moment, and he thought she was going to break out
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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 Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Ubaldin dalla Pila, and Boniface,
Who with his crook had pastured many people.
I saw Messer Marchese, who had leisure
Once at Forli for drinking with less dryness,
And he was one who ne'er felt satisfied.
But as he does who scans, and then doth prize
One more than others, did I him of Lucca,
Who seemed to take most cognizance of me.
He murmured, and I know not what Gentucca
From that place heard I, where he felt the wound
Of justice, that doth macerate them so.
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: sherry. That did not answer; the sherry was a little too dry.
Ultimately he became nothing, a delightful, ineffectual young man
with a perfect profile and no profession.
To make matters worse, he was in love. The girl he loved was Laura
Merton, the daughter of a retired Colonel who had lost his temper
and his digestion in India, and had never found either of them
again. Laura adored him, and he was ready to kiss her shoe-
strings. They were the handsomest couple in London, and had not a
penny-piece between them. The Colonel was very fond of Hughie, but
would not hear of any engagement.
'Come to me, my boy, when you have got ten thousand pounds of your
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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 Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: the passage through this close into a narrow street, called the Rue de
la Psalette, by which pedestrians passed from the Cloister to the
Grand'Rue. The name of this street, proves clearly enough that the
precentor and his pupils and those connected with the choir formerly
lived there. The other side, the left side, of the street is occupied
by a single house, the walls of which are overshadowed by the
buttresses of Saint-Gatien, which have their base in the narrow little
garden of the house, leaving it doubtful whether the cathedral was
built before or after this venerable dwelling. An archaeologist
examining the arabesques, the shape of the windows, the arch of the
door, the whole exterior of the house, now mellow with age, would see
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