| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: wholesale manner, it is to be doubted whether one of us, placed in
the midst of such a civilization, would know himself. He certainly
would derive but scanty satisfaction from the recognition if he did.
Even Nirvana might seem a happy limbo by comparison. With a communal,
not to say a cosmic, birthday, and a conventional wife, he might
well deem his separate existence the shadow of a shade and embrace
Buddhism from mere force of circumstances.
Further investigation would not shake his opinion. For a far-oriental
career is thoroughly in keeping with these, its typical turning-points.
From one end of its course to the other it is painfully impersonal.
In its regular routine as in its more salient junctures, life
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: droop under the heavy braids of it, and yet she was smiling. Andreas
caught his breath sharply. She was his wife--that girl. Posh! it had only
been taken four years ago. He held it close to him, bent forward and
kissed it. Then rubbed the glass with the back of his hand. At that
moment, fainter than he had heard in the passage, more terrifying, Andreas
heard again that wailing cry. The wind caught it up in mocking echo, blew
it over the house-tops, down the street, far away from him. He flung out
his arms, "I'm so damnably helpless," he said, and then, to the picture,
"Perhaps it's not as bad as it sounds; perhaps it is just my
sensitiveness." In the half light of the drawing-room the smile seemed to
deepen in Anna's portrait, and to become secret, even cruel. "No," he
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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 Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis: I suppose you have been in that interesting centre
of the tobacco industry. If you have you may
remember that the courthouse of Montgomery
County is right across the street from the best hotel.
I got a license and a preacher without any trouble,
and we were married in the hotel parlour that
afternoon. One of the hotel clerks and the county
clerk himself were the witnesses.
"We went to Cincinnati and from there to
Chicago. There we got rooms out on the South
Side--Hyde Park, they called it. And I got me a
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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 Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: hasten to say that there was absolutely nothing in her appearance or
manner to lead me to credit them. In fact, there was something cold
and proud and almost savage about her, which is, they tell me, a strong
characteristic of the Transteverine peasant-women. When she announced
our names Monsieur Dorlange was standing in a rather picturesque
working costume with his back to us, and I noticed that he hastily
drew an ample curtain before the statue on which he was engaged.
At the moment when he turned round, and before I had time to look at
him, imagine my astonishment when Nais ran forward and, with the
artlessness of a child, flung her arms about his neck crying out:--
"Are! here is my monsieur who saved me!"
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