| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: They told me you were out and I came upstairs."
The books lay between them on the table; he wondered when she
would see them. She lingered tentatively on the threshold, with
the air of leaving his explanation on his hands. She was not the
kind of woman who could be counted on to fortify an excuse by
appearing to dispute it.
"Where have you been?" Glennard asked, moving forward so that he
obstructed her vision of the books.
"I walked over to the Dreshams for tea."
"I can't think what you see in those people," he said with a
shrug; adding, uncontrollably--"I suppose Flamel was there?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: some of them to the pipes if this rencounter goes as it's to be
desired. Let's first, as I understand you to move, do each other
this rational courtesys; and if either will survive, we may grow
better acquaint. For your tastes for what's martial and for poetry
agree with mine.
A. S.
Letter: TO MARCEL SCHWOB
SYDNEY, JANUARY 19th, 1891.
MY DEAR SIR, - SAPRISTI, COMME VOUS Y ALLEZ! Richard III. and
Dumas, with all my heart; but not Hamlet. Hamlet is great
literature; Richard III. a big, black, gross, sprawling melodrama,
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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 Mother by Owen Wister: when I passed Tiffany's window that I should like to smash the clock."
"I met Ethel frequently in society, dancing with her, and sitting next
her at dinners. And by the time I had dined at her own house, and walked
several afternoons with her, my lot as a six-hundred-dollar clerk began
to seem very sad to me. I wrote verses about it, and about other subjects
also. From an evening passed with Ethel, I would go next morning to the
office and look at the other clerks. One of them was fifty-five, and he
still received six hundred dollars--his wages for the last thirty years. I
was then twenty-one; and though I never despaired to the extent of
believing that years would fail to increase my value to the firm by a
single cent, still, for what could I hope? If my salary were there and
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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 Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: well as the necessities of life, Nature had spread an inexhaustible
dessert of the largest and most luscious blueberries around our
tents.
After supper, strolling along the beach, we debated the best way of
escape; whether to send one of our canoes around the eastern shore
of the lake that night, to meet the steamer at the Island House and
bring it to our rescue; or to set out the next morning, and paddle
both canoes around the western end of the lake, thirty miles, to
the Hotel Roberval. While we were talking, we came to a dry old
birch-tree, with ragged, curling bark. "Here is a torch," cried
Damon, "to throw light upon the situation." He touched a match to
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