| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: "I met Ethel frequently in society, dancing with her, and sitting next
her at dinners. And by the time I had dined at her own house, and walked
several afternoons with her, my lot as a six-hundred-dollar clerk began
to seem very sad to me. I wrote verses about it, and about other subjects
also. From an evening passed with Ethel, I would go next morning to the
office and look at the other clerks. One of them was fifty-five, and he
still received six hundred dollars--his wages for the last thirty years. I
was then twenty-one; and though I never despaired to the extent of
believing that years would fail to increase my value to the firm by a
single cent, still, for what could I hope? If my salary were there and
then to be doubled, what kind of support was twelve hundred dollars to
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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 Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: as if in answer to their unspoken thought. "Can you give us the
details now, Madam? Who is, or rather who was, this John Siders?"
"John Siders came to our village a little over a year ago," continued
Miss Graumann. "He came from Chicago; he told us, although he was
evidently a German by birth. He bought a nice little piece of
property, not far from our home, and settled down there. He was a
quiet man and made few friends, but he seemed to take to Albert and
came to see us frequently. Albert had spent some years in America,
in Chicago, and Siders liked to talk to him about things and people
there. But one day Siders suddenly sold his property and moved to G-.
Two weeks later he was found dead in his lodgings in the city,
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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 An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: translations. Thus, they are stealing my language from me - a
language they had little knowledge of before this. However, they
do not thank me for this but instead use it against me. Yet I
readily grant them this as it tickles me to know that I have
taught my ungrateful students, even my enemies, to speak.
Secondly, you might say that I have conscientiously translated the
New Testament into German to the best of my ability, and that I
have not forced anyone to read it. Rather I have left it open,
only doing the translation as a service to those who could not do
it as well. No one is forbidden to do it better. If someone does
not wish to read it, he can let it lie, for I do not ask anyone to
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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 Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: it would not. I, too, had perished along with him; nor would
I have been able to alleviate his last moments, nor could I
to-day have stood between his family and the hand of Brigham
Young.'
'Ah!' cried I, 'and could you purchase life by such
concessions?'
'Young lady,' answered the doctor, 'I both could and did; and
you will live to thank me for that baseness. You have a
spirit, Asenath, that it pleases me to recognise. But we
waste time. Mr. Fonblanque's estate reverts, as you
doubtless imagine, to the Church; but some part of it has
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