| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: acquaintance with the black bottle above mentioned. "But watch,
if you like, and call as many devils as you like! For my part, I
shall be all the better for a snooze. Come, Joe!"
As the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked back at
the wayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes, for his tender
spirit had an intuition of the bleak and terrible loneliness in
which this man had enveloped himself.
When they had gone, Ethan Brand sat listening to the crackling of
the kindled wood, and looking at the little spirts of fire that
issued through the chinks of the door. These trifles, however,
once so familiar, had but the slightest hold of his attention,
The Snow Image |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: like proceeding from first principles. For if we knew that the addition of
something would improve some other thing, and were able to make the
addition, then, clearly, we must know how that about which we are advising
may be best and most easily attained. Perhaps you do not understand what I
mean. Then let me make my meaning plainer in this way. Suppose we knew
that the addition of sight makes better the eyes which possess this gift,
and also were able to impart sight to the eyes, then, clearly, we should
know the nature of sight, and should be able to advise how this gift of
sight may be best and most easily attained; but if we knew neither what
sight is, nor what hearing is, we should not be very good medical advisers
about the eyes or the ears, or about the best mode of giving sight and
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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 Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: "Yes," said Ann Eliza.
III
Two days afterward, Ann Eliza noticed that Evelina, before
they sat down to supper, pinned a crimson bow under her collar; and
when the meal was finished the younger sister, who seldom concerned
herself with the clearing of the table, set about with nervous
haste to help Ann Eliza in the removal of the dishes.
"I hate to see food mussing about," she grumbled. "Ain't it
hateful having to do everything in one room?"
"Oh, Evelina, I've always thought we was so comfortable," Ann
Eliza protested.
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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 Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: quick look that passed without the slightest flicker of the
eyelids between Major Mackenzie and the young woman in Section 3.
It was as if the old officer had wired her a message in some code
the cipher of which was known only to them.
But the sheriff, returning at the head of his cohorts, caught it,
and wondered what meaning might lie back of that swift glance.
Major Mackenzie and this dark-eyed beauty posed before others as
strangers, yet between them lay some freemasonry of understanding
to which he had not the key.
Collins did not know that the aloofness in the eyes of Miss
Wainwright--he had seen the name on her suit-case--gave way to
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