| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: more trouble with that stick than ever you had taken. She had
been three years making that stick, out of many things, sunbeams
among the rest. But when it fell into the river, Madam How knew
that she should not lose her sunbeams nor anything else: the
stick would float down the river, and on into the sea; and there,
when it got heavy with the salt water, it would sink, and lodge,
and be buried, and perhaps ages hence turn into coal; and ages
after that some one would dig it up and burn it, and then out
would come, as bright warm flame, all the sunbeams that were
stored away in that stick: and so Madam How would have her own
again. And if that should not be the fate of your stick, still
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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 Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: and all my grass to roll.'
"'Well, really,' said the Miller, 'I think that, considering that I
am going to give you my wheelbarrow, it is rather unfriendly of you
to refuse.'
"'Oh, don't say that,' cried little Hans, 'I wouldn't be unfriendly
for the whole world'; and he ran in for his cap, and trudged off
with the big sack on his shoulders.
"It was a very hot day, and the road was terribly dusty, and before
Hans had reached the sixth milestone he was so tired that he had to
sit down and rest. However, he went on bravely, and as last he
reached the market. After he had waited there some time, he sold
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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 A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: this uncouth reception, which they told me, upon my demanding the
reason of it, was to show those whom they treated with that they
were the bravest people in the world, and that all other nations
ought to bow down before them. I could not help reflecting on this
occasion how imprudently I had trusted my life in the hands of men
unacquainted with compassion of civility, but recollecting at the
same time that the intent of my journey was such as might give me
hopes of the divine protection, I banished all thoughts but those of
finding a way into Aethiopia. In this strait it occurred to me that
these people, however barbarous, have some oath which they keep with
an inviolable strictness; the best precaution, therefore, that I
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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 Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: meant was this--that whatever Rudolph "was up to," Mabel was "up to" also, and
vice versa. They traveled together finely, right "up on the bit" all the time.
It would have been easier for those who had charge of them if one or the other
had held back now and then, and set a slower pace, but as that was not their
nature and could not be helped, everybody tried to make the best of them, and
everybody loved them. Tattine did not see how she could ever have lived
without them, for they were almost as much a brother and sister to her as to
each other. This morning hey had come over by invitation for what they called
a Maple-wax morning, and that was exactly what it was, and if you have never
had one of your own, wait till you read about this one of Tattine's, and then
give your dear Mamma no peace until you have had one, either in your kitchen
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