| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: "Come; are you the same as you were when your uncle brought you here
barefooted?"
"A fine question, faith!" cried Flore, blushing.
The heir lowered his head and did not raise it again. Flore, amazed at
such an encouraging sign from a man who had been overcome by a fear of
that nature, left the room.
Three days later, at the same hour (for both seemed to regard the
dessert as a field of battle), Flore spoke first, and said to her
master,--
"Have you anything against me?"
"No, mademoiselle," he answered, "No--" [a pause] "On the contrary."
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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 Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: some of El Orobo's men you shot up day before yesterday
when you took their steers from them. They recognized the
pony, and one of them had seen you in Cuivaca the night of
the robbery. They would be sure to get you, Billy."
Shortly the two came in touch with the retreating Pesitistas
who were riding slowly toward their mountain camp. Their
pursuers had long since given up the chase, fearing that they
might be being lured into the midst of a greatly superior force,
and had returned to Cuivaca.
It was nearly morning when Bridge and Billy threw themselves
down upon the latter's blankets, fagged.
The Mucker |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: Sit bound with others' heart-strings as with chains,
And, if one moves, all suffer, - to that Goal,
If such a land, if such a sphere, there be,
Thither, from life and all life's joys and pains,
O even wings of music, bear my soul!
FEAR NOT, DEAR FRIEND, BUT FREELY LIVE YOUR DAYS
FEAR not, dear friend, but freely live your days
Though lesser lives should suffer. Such am I,
A lesser life, that what is his of sky
Gladly would give for you, and what of praise.
Step, without trouble, down the sunlit ways.
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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 Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: the happiness which is in store for your friend,
MARIE GASTON.
L
MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MME. DE MACUMER
Louise, can it be that, with all your knowledge of the deep-seated
mischief wrought by the indulgence of passion, even within the heart
of marriage, you are planning a life of wedded solitude? Having
sacrificed your first husband in the course of a fashionable career,
would you now fly to the desert to consume a second? What stores of
misery you are laying up for yourself!
But I see from the way you have set about it that there is no going
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