| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: construction of the family tree of life. And then the students
went into the long laboratory and followed out these facts in
almost living tissue with microscope and scalpel, probe and
microtome, and the utmost of their skill and care, making now and
then a raid into the compact museum of illustration next door, in
which specimens and models and directions stood in disciplined
ranks, under the direction of the demonstrator Capes. There was
a couple of blackboards at each end of the aisle of tables, and
at these Capes, with quick and nervous speech that contrasted
vividly with Russell's slow, definitive articulation, directed
the dissection and made illuminating comments on the structures
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: the bosom of one's family, especially when the family
refuses to take one seriously. Seven years of newspaper
grind have taught me the fallacy of trying to write by
the inspiration method. But there is such a thing as a
train of thought, and mine is constantly being derailed,
and wrecked and pitched about.
Scarcely am I settled in my cubby-hole, typewriter
before me, the working plan of a story buzzing about in
my brain, when I hear my name called in muffled tones, as
though the speaker were laboring with a mouthful of
hairpins. I pay no attention. I have just given my
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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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: Lord Glenalmond was tall and emaciated, with long features and long
delicate hands. He was often compared with the statue of Forbes of
Culloden in the Parliament House; and his blue eye, at more than sixty,
preserved some of the fire of youth. His exquisite disparity with any
of his fellow-guests, his appearance as of an artist and an aristocrat
stranded in rude company, riveted the boy's attention; and as curiosity
and interest are the things in the world that are the most immediately
and certainly rewarded, Lord Glenalmond was attracted by the boy.
"And so this is your son, Hermiston?" he asked, laying his hand on
Archie's shoulder. "He's getting a big lad."
"Hout!" said the gracious father, "just his mother over again - daurna
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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 The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: at the piano in the salon beyond the partition, wearing a sweater
and fingerless gloves and holding a hot-water bottle on her
knees. Three rooms beyond, down the stone hall, the Big Soprano,
doing Madama Butterfly in bad German, helped to make an
encircling wall of sound in the center of which one might
practice peacefully.
Only the Portier objected. Morning after morning, crawling out at
dawn from under his featherbed in the lodge below, he opened his
door and listened to Harmony doing penance above; and morning
after morning he shook his fist up the stone staircase.
"Gott im Himmel!" he would say to his wife, fumbling with the
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