| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: handy with a conveyance as I be with a good bo't. Comes o' my
early bringing-up. I expect we've got to make that great high
wagon do. The tires want settin' and 'tis all loose-jointed, so I
can hear it shackle the other side o' the ridge. We'll put the
basket in front. I ain't goin' to have it bouncin' an' twirlin'
all the way. Why, I've been makin' some nice hearts and rounds to
carry."
These were signs of high festivity, and my interest deepened
moment by moment.
"I'll go down to the Beggs' and get the horse just as soon as
I finish my breakfast," said I. "Then we can start whenever you
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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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: crime which led to the opulence of the Taillefer family. I was on the
point of asking the father for Victorine's hand. But I fled; I
travelled; I went to Germany, to Andernach; and then--I returned! I
found Victorine pale, and thinner; if I had seen her well in health
and gay, I should certainly have been saved. Instead of which my love
burst out again with untold violence. Fearing that my scruples might
degenerate into monomania, I resolved to convoke a sanhedrim of sound
consciences, and obtain from them some light on this problem of high
morality and philosophy,--a problem which had been, as we shall see,
still further complicated since my return.
Two days ago, therefore, I collected those of my friends to whom I
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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 Baby Mine by Margaret Mayo: "Oh, no!" shouted Alfred, almost hysterical at his apparent
failure to make himself understood. "You wouldn't let any harm
come to me. Oh, no. You've only made me the greatest joke in
Chicago," he shouted. "You've only made me such a laughing stock
that I have to leave it. That's all--that's all!"
"Leave Chicago!" exclaimed Zoie incredulously. Then regaining
her self-composure, she edged her way close to him and looked up
into his eyes in baby-like wonderment. "Why, Allie, where are we
going?" Her small arm crept up toward his shoulder. Alfred
pushed it from him rudely.
"WE are not going," he asserted in a firm, measured voice. "_I_
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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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: over me. It seemed to me that I had given away my capacity for
belief in the Willie Hughes theory of the Sonnets, that something
had gone out of me, as it were, and that I was perfectly
indifferent to the whole subject. What was it that had happened?
It is difficult to say. Perhaps, by finding perfect expression for
a passion, I had exhausted the passion itself. Emotional forces,
like the forces of physical life, have their positive limitations.
Perhaps the mere effort to convert any one to a theory involves
some form of renunciation of the power of credence. Perhaps I was
simply tired of the whole thing, and, my enthusiasm having burnt
out, my reason was left to its own unimpassioned judgment. However
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