| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: care would be to follow up the lost manuscript. I can see she
thinks me a shocking busybody and doesn't understand my alarm, but
she'll do what she can, for she's a good-natured woman. 'So are
they all honourable men.' That was precisely what made her give
the thing to Lord Dorimont and made Lord Dorimont bag it. What use
HE has for it God only knows. I've the worst forebodings, but
somehow I'm strangely without passion - desperately calm. As I
consider the unconscious, the well-meaning ravages of our
appreciative circle I bow my head in submission to some great
natural, some universal accident; I'm rendered almost indifferent,
in fact quite gay (ha-ha!) by the sense of immitigable fate. Lady
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: in a pigeon-hole. Here flourished the agent and his lungs, and here the
company's strict orders bade him sleep in charge; so I helped him put his
room to rights. But we need not have hurried ourselves. Mr. McLean was so
long in bringing the lady that I went out and found him walking and
talking with her, while fifty yards away skulked poor Texas, alone. This
boy's name was, like himself, of the somewhat unexpected order, being
Manassas Donohoe.
As I came towards the new friends they did not appear to be joking, and
on seeing me Miss Buckner said to Lin, "Did he know?"
Lin hesitated.
"You did know!" she exclaimed, but lost her resentment at once, and
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