| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: when she sat on a bank beside him, in a quiet, secluded place
"all smelling of vi'lets," and talked to him of love.
"When her voice went low and she whispered," said Mr. Skelmersdale,
"and laid 'er 'and on my 'and, you know, and came close with a soft,
warm friendly way she 'ad, it was as much as I could do to keep my
'ead."
It seems he kept his head to a certain limited unfortunate extent.
He saw "'ow the wind was blowing," he says, and so, sitting there
in a place all smelling of violets, with the touch of this lovely
Fairy Lady about him, Mr. Skelmersdale broke it to her gently--
that he was engaged!
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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 Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: bachelor and the independence necessary for playing the whist of
ambition. I would concede my future wife to you if you were not
married already. But that cannot be helped, and I am not the man
to bid you chew the cud of the past.
All this preamble was needful to explain to you that for the
future my position in life will be such as a man needs if he wants
to play the great game of pitch-and-toss. I cannot do without you,
my friend. Now, then, my dear Paul, instead of setting sail for
India you would do a much wiser thing to navigate with me the
waters of the Seine. Believe me, Paris is still the place where
fortune, abundant fortune, can be won. Potosi is in the rue
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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 Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: horrified by the definiteness of his desire. He was so alarmed
that he wrote about it to the starets. And in addition, to keep
himself in hand, he spoke to a young novice and, conquering his
sense of shame, confessed his weakness to him, asking him to keep
watch on him and not let him go anywhere except to service and to
fulfil his duties.
Besides this, a great pitfall for Sergius lay in the fact of his
extreme antipathy to his new Abbot, a cunning worldly man who was
making a career for himself in the Church. Struggle with himself
as he might, he could not master that feeling. He was submissive
to the Abbot, but in the depths of his soul he never ceased to
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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 Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: Leslie took up the matter angrily, visited Carfrae the
publisher, and threatened him with an action, till he was
forced to turn the hapless LAPSUS out of doors. The
maltreated periodical found shelter in the shop of Huie,
Infirmary Street; and No. XVII. was duly issued from the new
office. No. XVII. beheld MR. TATLER'S humiliation, in which,
with fulsome apology and not very credible assurances of
respect and admiration, he disclaims the article in question,
and advertises a new issue of No. XVI. with all objectionable
matter omitted. This, with pleasing euphemism, he terms in a
later advertisement, 'a new and improved edition.' This was
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