| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Finished by H. Rider Haggard: do about the matter, at the same time denying that there was any
white woman in the Black Kloof. He said that at dawn the king
would send and kill these foreign rats, whom the Opener of Roads
kept in the thatch of his hut. Now he drew near and asked his
pay. I gave it to him--with a knife-point, Macumazahn. Oh! that
was a good thrust. He never spoke again. Then I slipped away,
for all the others were asleep, and was here a little after
midnight."
"I thought I saw you, Nombe," I said, "but was not sure, so I did
nothing."
She smiled and answered--
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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 Call of the Wild by Jack London: into the darkness and fling more wood upon the fire. Did they
walk by the beach of a sea, where the hairy man gathered shell-
fish and ate them as he gathered, it was with eyes that roved
everywhere for hidden danger and with legs prepared to run like
the wind at its first appearance. Through the forest they crept
noiselessly, Buck at the hairy man's heels; and they were alert
and vigilant, the pair of them, ears twitching and moving and
nostrils quivering, for the man heard and smelled as keenly as
Buck. The hairy man could spring up into the trees and travel
ahead as fast as on the ground, swinging by the arms from limb to
limb, sometimes a dozen feet apart, letting go and catching, never
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: husband till after she had parted from the first, and she had,
moreover, replaced a rich man by a poor one. Though Clement
Westall was acknowledged to be a rising lawyer, it was generally
felt that his fortunes would not rise as rapidly as his
reputation. The Westalls would probably always have to live
quietly and go out to dinner in cabs. Could there be better
evidence of Mrs. Arment's complete disinterestedness?
If the reasoning by which her friends justified her course was
somewhat cruder and less complex than her own elucidation of the
matter, both explanations led to the same conclusion: John Arment
was impossible. The only difference was that, to his wife, his
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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 Touchstone by Edith Wharton: unwilling his departure should have left. But in the dissolution
of sentimental partnerships it is seldom that both associates are
able to withdraw their funds at the same time; and Glennard
gradually learned that he stood for the venture on which Mrs.
Aubyn had irretrievably staked her all. It was not the kind of
figure he cared to cut. He had no fancy for leaving havoc in his
wake and would have preferred to sow a quick growth of oblivion in
the spaces wasted by his unconsidered inroads; but if he supplied
the seed it was clearly Mrs. Aubyn's business to see to the
raising of the crop. Her attitude seemed indeed to throw his own
reasonableness into distincter relief: so that they might have
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