| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: admitted. "I would give a good deal to have the privilege of
hanging your red-headed friend, but since that is denied me, I
must be grateful he does not take a fancy to hang me."
"In case he doesn't, your excellency," was Bucky's addendum.
"I understand he has decided to deport me," retorted Megales
lightly. "It is perhaps better politics, on the whole, better
even than a knife in the back."
"Unless rumor is a lying jade, you should be a good judge of
that, governor," said the American, eyeing him sternly.
Megales shrugged. "One of the penalties of fame is that one gets
credit for much he does not deserve. There was your immortal
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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 A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: who prefer the sketch to the picture. All the quick subtlety of her
character was visible in the features of the charming actress, who at
that time might have sat for Goethe's Mignon. Matifat, a wealthy
druggist of the Rue des Lombards, had imagined that a little Boulevard
actress would have no very expensive tastes, but in eleven months
Florine had cost him sixty thousand francs. Nothing seemed more
extraordinary to Lucien than the sight of an honest and worthy
merchant standing like a statue of the god Terminus in the actress'
narrow dressing-room, a tiny place some ten feet square, hung with a
pretty wall-paper, and adorned with a full-length mirror, a sofa, and
two chairs. There was a fireplace in the dressing-closet, a carpet on
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