| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: I'll wait till you're asleep, and then I'll creep over and take a little
tiny piece of your arm and twist and twist it until--" He leant over the
table making the most horrible faces at Lena, not noticing that Anton was
standing behind his chair until the little boy bent over and spat on his
brother's shaven head.
"Oh, weh! oh, weh!"
The Child-Who-Was-Tired pushed and pulled them apart, muffled them into
their coats, and drove them out of the house.
"Hurry, hurry! the second bell's rung," she urged, knowing perfectly well
she was telling a story, and rather exulting in the fact. She washed up
the breakfast things, then went down to the cellar to look out the potatoes
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: "A bag of gold-dust," he explained, "and a letter. I wrote it at his
dictation while he was dying. He lived hardly an hour afterward."
The stranger bowed his head at the stricken cry which his news elicited
from the priest, who, after a few moments' vain effort to speak, opened
the letter and read:
My dear Friend,--It is through no man's fault but mine that I have come
to this. I have had plenty of luck, and lately have been counting the
days until I should return home. But last night heavy news from New
Orleans reached me, and I tore the pressed flower to pieces. Under the
first smart and humiliation of broken faith I was rendered desperate, and
picked a needless quarrel. Thank God, it is I who have the punishment. By
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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 Death of the Lion by Henry James: degree to be a picture either of my introduction to Mr. Paraday or
of certain proximate steps and stages. The scheme of my narrative
allows no space for these things, and in any case a prohibitory
sentiment would hang about my recollection of so rare an hour.
These meagre notes are essentially private, so that if they see the
light the insidious forces that, as my story itself shows, make at
present for publicity will simply have overmastered my precautions.
The curtain fell lately enough on the lamentable drama. My memory
of the day I alighted at Mr. Paraday's door is a fresh memory of
kindness, hospitality, compassion, and of the wonderful
illuminating talk in which the welcome was conveyed. Some voice of
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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 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: captain said he [the captain of the screw] had plenty of money,
five or six hundred a year at least. - "What in the world makes him
go rolling about in such a craft, then?" - "Why, I fancy he's
reckless; he's desperate in love with that girl I mentioned, and
she won't look at him." Our honest, fat, old captain says this
very grimly in his thick, broad voice.
'My head won't stand much writing yet, so I will run up and take a
look at the blue night sky off the coast of Portugal.
'May 26.
'A nice lad of some two and twenty, A- by name, goes out in a
nondescript capacity as part purser, part telegraph clerk, part
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