| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: me to cause his disinheritance! Nurse, now do your best, and I
will always be your slave." Then the nurse tells her and assures
her that she will cast so many charms, and prepare so many
potions and enchantments that she need never have any worry or
fear concerning the emperor after he shall have drunk of the
potion which she will give him; even when they shall lie together
and she be at his side, she may be as secure as if there were a
wall between them. "But do not be alarmed, if, in his sleep, he
sports with you, for when he is plunged in sleep he will have his
sport with you, and he will be convinced that he has had you when
wide awake, nor will he think it is all a dream, a fiction, and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: He held out a newspaper to Mary, who unfolded it slowly,
remembering, as she did so, the evening when, in that same room,
the perusal of a clipping from the "Sentinel" had first shaken
the depths of her security.
As she opened the paper, her eyes, shrinking from the glaring
head-lines, "Widow of Boyne's Victim Forced to Appeal for Aid,"
ran down the column of text to two portraits inserted in it. The
first was her husband's, taken from a photograph made the year
they had come to England. It was the picture of him that she
liked best, the one that stood on the writing-table up-stairs in
her bedroom. As the eyes in the photograph met hers, she felt it
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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 Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: should carry upon our consciences so much, at least, of our
forefathers' misconduct as we continue to profit by ourselves.
If oppression drives a wise man mad, what should be raging in the
hearts of these poor tribes, who have been driven back and back,
step after step, their promised reservations torn from them one
after another as the States extended westward, until at length they
are shut up into these hideous mountain deserts of the centre - and
even there find themselves invaded, insulted, and hunted out by
ruffianly diggers? The eviction of the Cherokees (to name but an
instance), the extortion of Indian agents, the outrages of the
wicked, the ill-faith of all, nay, down to the ridicule of such
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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 House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: me to keep my mouth shut--but Gryce-- good Lord, GRYCE! Did
Judy really think you could bring yourself to marry that
portentous little ass? But you couldn't, eh? And so you gave him
the sack, and that's the reason why he lit out by the first train
this morning?" He leaned back, spreading himself farther across
the seat, as if dilated by the joyful sense of his own
discernment. "How on earth could Judy think you would do such a
thing? I could have told her you'd never put up with such a
little milksop!"
Lily sighed more deeply. "I sometimes think," she murmured, "that
men understand a woman's motives better than other women do."
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