| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: away from that little camp, particularly as we have not had so much as a taste
of the delicious wax they've been making.
CHAPTER III. A SET OF SETTERS
It was a great bird-year at Oakdene. Never had there been so many. The same
dear old Phoebe-birds were back, building under the eaves of both the front
and back piazzas. The robins, as usual, were everywhere. The Maryland
yellow-throats were nesting in great numbers in the young growth of woods on
the hill of the ravine, and ringing out their hammer-like note in the merriest
manner; a note that no one understood until Dr. Van Dyke told us, in his
beautiful little poem, that it is "witchery, witchery, witchery," and now we
wonder that we could have been so stupid as not to have discovered it was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: alliance, which will be poor in happiness if rich in goods."
"It is very clear," said his father, "that you were not brought up
under the old /regime/. Does a man of our rank ever allow his wife to
be in his way?"
"But, my dear father, in these days marriage is--"
"Bless me!" cried the Count, interrupting his son, "then what my old
/emigre/ friends tell me is true, I suppose. The Revolution has left
us habits devoid of pleasure, and has infected all the young men with
vulgar principles. You, like my Jacobin brother-in-law, will harangue
me, I suppose, on the Nation, Public Morals, and Disinterestedness!--
Good Heavens! But for the Emperor's sisters, where should we be?"
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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 The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: young writers to avoid alliteration; and the advice was
sound, in so far as it prevented daubing. None the less for
that, was it abominable nonsense, and the mere raving of
those blindest of the blind who will not see. The beauty of
the contents of a phrase, or of a sentence, depends
implicitly upon alliteration and upon assonance. The vowel
demands to be repeated; the consonant demands to be repeated;
and both cry aloud to be perpetually varied. You may follow
the adventures of a letter through any passage that has
particularly pleased you; find it, perhaps, denied a while,
to tantalise the ear; find it fired again at you in a whole
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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 Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: was the only marriage obligation unknown to these lovers, whose love
was equal; for Balthazar Claes found the complete and lasting
realization of his hopes in Mademoiselle de Temninck; his heart was
satisfied but not wearied, the man within him was ever happy.
Not only did the daughter of Casa-Real derive from her Spanish blood
the intuition of that science which varies pleasure and makes it
infinite, but she possessed the spirit of unbounded self-devotion,
which is the genius of her sex as grace is that of beauty. Her love
was a blind fanaticism which, at a nod, would have sent her joyously
to her death. Balthazar's own delicacy had exalted the generous
emotions of his wife, and inspired her with an imperious need of
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