| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: into each other like everything; and whenever the
smoke cleared a little you could see dead and wounded
people and camels scattered far and wide and all about,
and camels racing off in every direction.
At last the robbers see they couldn't win, so their
chief sounded a signal, and all that was left of them
broke away and went scampering across the plain.
The last man to go snatched up a child and carried it
off in front of him on his horse, and a woman run
screaming and begging after him, and followed him
away off across the plain till she was separated a long
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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 Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: That, with the sulphur battles of your rage,
The English Fleet may be dispersed and sunk.
[Shot.]
PHILLIP.
O Father, how this echoing Cannon shot,
Like sweet harmony, digests my eats!
KING JOHN.
Now, boy, thou hearest what thundering terror tis,
To buckle for a kingdom's sovereignty:
The earth, with giddy trembling when it shakes,
Or when the exhalations of the air
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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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: You need not be alarmed that I am going to imitate Meredith. You
know I was a Story-teller ingrain; did not that reassure you? The
VENDETTA, which falls next to be finished, is not entirely
pleasant. But it has points. THE FOREST STATE or THE GREENWOOD
STATE: A ROMANCE, is another pair of shoes. It is my old
Semiramis, our half-seen Duke and Duchess, which suddenly sprang
into sunshine clearness as a story the other day. The kind, happy
DENOUEMENT is unfortunately absolutely undramatic, which will be
our only trouble in quarrying out the play. I mean we shall quarry
from it. CHARACTERS - Otto Frederick John, hereditary Prince of
Grunwald; Amelia Seraphina, Princess; Conrad, Baron Gondremarck,
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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 Message by Honore de Balzac: the master; apt to domineer in trifles, and to let more important
things slip past unheeded--there you have the man!
But the Countess! Ah, how sharp and startling the contrast
between husband and wife! The Countess was a little woman, with a
flat, graceful figure and enchanting shape; so fragile, so dainty
was she, that you would have feared to break some bone if you so
much as touched her. She wore a white muslin dress, a rose-
colored sash, and rose-colored ribbons in the pretty cap on her
head; her chemisette was moulded so deliciously by her shoulders
and the loveliest rounded contours, that the sight of her
awakened an irresistible desire of possession in the depths of
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