| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: a large slice out of the mutton there came a tremendous rap at the
door. The old gentleman jumped off the hob as if it had suddenly
become inconveniently warm. Gluck fitted the slice into the
mutton again, with desperate efforts at exactitude, and ran to
open the door.
"What did you keep us waiting in the rain for?" said
Schwartz, as he walked in, throwing his umbrella in Gluck's face.
"Aye! what for, indeed, you little vagabond?" said Hans,
administering an educational box on the ear as he followed his
brother into the kitchen.
"Bless my soul!" said Schwartz when he opened the door.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: argument" was their watchword, and it was so to continue for two
years yet, with a patience and fortitude in the face of ceaseless
provocation to which insufficient justice has been done.
As the King was leaving the Assembly, a woman, embracing his knees,
gave tongue to what might well be the question of all France:
"Ah, sire, are you really sincere? Are you sure they will not
make you change your mind?"
Yet no such question was asked when a couple of days later the King,
alone and unguarded save by the representatives of the Nation, came
to Paris to complete the peacemaking, the surrender of Privilege.
The Court was filled with terror by the adventure. Were they not
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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 Menexenus by Plato: nineteen-twentieths of all the writings which have ever been ascribed to
Plato, are undoubtedly genuine. There is another portion of them,
including the Epistles, the Epinomis, the dialogues rejected by the
ancients themselves, namely, the Axiochus, De justo, De virtute, Demodocus,
Sisyphus, Eryxias, which on grounds, both of internal and external
evidence, we are able with equal certainty to reject. But there still
remains a small portion of which we are unable to affirm either that they
are genuine or spurious. They may have been written in youth, or possibly
like the works of some painters, may be partly or wholly the compositions
of pupils; or they may have been the writings of some contemporary
transferred by accident to the more celebrated name of Plato, or of some
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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 In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: efficient waiter can you have by yourselves."
"But I prefer them to look over your head."
"And that proves that you must be ashamed of your bodice."
I looked out over the garden full of wall-flowers and standard rose-trees
growing stiffly like German bouquets, feeling I did not care one way or the
other. I rather wanted to ask her if the young friend had gone to England
in the capacity of waiter to attend the funeral baked meats, but decided it
was not worth it. The weather was too hot to be malicious, and who could
be uncharitable, victimised by the flapping sensations which Frau Fischer
was enduring until six-thirty? As a gift from heaven for my forbearance,
down the path towards us came the Herr Rat, angelically clad in a white
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