| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: proving the certainty of this last incident, opened his eyes as
to the character and life of these two women.
Had they really waited till the portrait was given them before
robbing him of his purse? In such a combination the theft was
even more odious. The painter recollected that for the last two
or three evenings Adelaide, while seeming to examine with a
girl's curiosity the particular stitch of the worn silk netting,
was probably counting the coins in the purse, while making some
light jests, quite innocent in appearance, but no doubt with the
object of watching for a moment when the sum was worth stealing.
"The old admiral has perhaps good reasons for not marrying
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: time they made the transit; and on this occasion one of the
yachtsmen carried a leather portmanteau, and the others a lady's
trunk and carriage bag. My curiosity was sharply excited. If a
woman were among the guests of Northmour, it would show a change in
his habits and an apostasy from his pet theories of life, well
calculated to fill me with surprise. When he and I dwelt there
together, the pavilion had been a temple of misogyny. And now, one
of the detested sex was to be installed under its roof. I
remembered one or two particulars, a few notes of daintiness and
almost of coquetry which had struck me the day before as I surveyed
the preparations in the house; their purpose was now clear, and I
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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: suppose from high standards of conduct in essentials.
'. . .This matter of precedence is a bore for an outsider. I am
very tired of being taken in to dinner by subalterns, because I have
no "official position." Something of the kind was offered me, by
the way, the other day, by a little gunner with red eyelids, in the
Ordnance Department, named McDermott--Captain McDermott. He took my
declining very cheerfully, said he knew Americans didn't like
Englishmen, who hadn't been taught to pronounce their "g's," but
hoped I would change my mind before the rains, when he was goin'
down. Of course I sha'n't. The red eyelids alone. . .I am living
in a boarding-house precisely under the deodars, and have "tiffin"
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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 Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: a weaver of cloth from the cradle, until the fever of Klondike had
entered his blood and torn him away from his loom. His cabin
stood midway between Sixty Mile Post and the Stuart River; and men
who made it a custom to travel the trail to Dawson, likened him to
a robber baron, perched in his fortress and exacting toll from the
caravans that used his ill-kept roads. Since a certain amount of
history was required in the construction of this figure, the less
cultured wayfarers from Stuart River were prone to describe him
after a still more primordial fashion, in which a command of
strong adjectives was to be chiefly noted.
This cabin was not his, by the way, having been built several
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