| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: spot to be chosen for your tulip; you will plant it
according to my instructions; and as to the third sucker,"
-- Cornelius here heaved a deep sigh, -- "watch over it as a
miser over his first or last piece of gold; as the mother
over her child; as the wounded over the last drop of blood
in his veins; watch over it, Rosa! Some voice within me
tells me that it will be our saving, that it will be a
source of good to us."
"Be easy, Mynheer Cornelius," said Rosa, with a sweet
mixture of melancholy and gravity, "be easy; your wishes are
commands to me."
The Black Tulip |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: of those unfortunate wretches who cannot drink wine at all. He
had offered to take the girl home in a cab, and on the way he had
lost his head.
Oh! What a wretched thing it was. He could hardly believe that
it was he who had spoken those frenzied words; and yet he must
have spoken them, because he remembered them. He remembered that
it had taken a long time to persuade her. He had had to promise
her a ring like the one her married friend wore. Before they
entered her home she had made him take off his shoes, so that the
porter might not hear them. This had struck George particularly,
because, even flushed with excitement as he was, he had not
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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 Before Adam by Jack London: dashed. There was great excitement among the other
Folk. They set up a wild chattering, that was loudest
when Red-Eye was at a distance, and that hushed when
the chase led him near. They were impotent onlookers.
The females screeched and gibbered, and the males beat
their chests in helpless rage. Big Face was especially
angry, and though he hushed his racket when Red-Eye
drew near, he did not hush it to the extent the others
did.
As for me, I played no brave part. I know I was
anything but a hero. Besides, of what use would it
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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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk
voice of silvery /timbre/, flexible as a thread to which the faintest
breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and
blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more
than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the
convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon
obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to
bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given
way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure,
or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water
from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of
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