| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: with grass, the great gates never opened, the last lord and
his old maid sister who lived in the back parts of the house,
a quiet, plain, poor, hum-drum couple it would seem - but
pathetic too, as the last of that stirring and brave house -
and, to the country folk, faintly terrible from some deformed
traditions.'
'Yes,' said Mr. Thomson. Henry Graeme Durie, the last lord,
died in 1820; his sister, the Honourable Miss Katherine
Durie, in '27; so much I know; and by what I have been going
over the last few days, they were what you say, decent, quiet
people and not rich. To say truth, it was a letter of my
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: From his lips fell the main facts in the screed herewith
presented. It ill befits that Freda herself should have waxed
confidential to a mere scribbler of words, or that Mrs. Eppingwell
made mention of the things which happened. They may have spoken,
but it is unlikely.
II
Floyd Vanderlip was a strong man, apparently. Hard work and hard
grub had no terrors for him, as his early history in the country
attested. In danger he was a lion, and when he held in check half
a thousand starving men, as he once did, it was remarked that no
cooler eye ever took the glint of sunshine on a rifle-sight. 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 Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: come; and she became very unhappy,-- felt as if she had foolishly given
away a part of her life. She thought about the old saying that a mirror is
the Soul of a Woman -- (a saying mystically expressed, by the Chinese
character for Soul, upon the backs of many bronze mirrors),-- and she
feared that it was true in weirder ways than she had before imagined. But
she could not dare to speak of her pain to anybody.
Now, when all the mirrors contributed for the Mugenyama bell had been sent
to the foundry, the bell-founders discovered that there was one mirror
among them which would not melt. Again and again they tried to melt it; but
it resisted all their efforts. Evidently the woman who had given that
mirror to the temple must have regretted the giving. She had not presented
Kwaidan |
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 Death of the Lion by Henry James: emissary of Mr. Pinhorn, and I was so exhilarated by the idea of it
that I called after him as he left us: "Read the article in THE
EMPIRE and you'll soon be all right!"
CHAPTER V.
"DELICIOUS my having come down to tell him of it!" Mr. Morrow
ejaculated. "My cab was at the door twenty minutes after THE
EMPIRE had been laid on my breakfast-table. Now what have you got
for me?" he continued, dropping again into his chair, from which,
however, he the next moment eagerly rose. "I was shown into the
drawing-room, but there must be more to see - his study, his
literary sanctum, the little things he has about, or other domestic
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