| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: and went out of the Exchange. I retired to my usual table, and the girl
read in my manner, quite correctly, the feelings which I had not supposed
I had allowed to be evident. She said:--
"Aunt Josephine always makes strangers think she's displeased with them."
I replied like the young ass which I constantly tell myself I have ceased
to be: "Oh, displeasure is as much notice as one is entitled to from Miss
St. Michael."
The girl laughed with her delightful sweet mockery.
"I declare, you're huffed! Now don't tell me you're not. But you mustn't
be. When you know her, you'll know that that awful manner means Aunt
Josephine is just being shy. Why, even I'm not afraid of her George
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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 Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: believe that he trembled like some boy fresh from college before
his first partner at a dance, when he asks her, "Do you like
dancing?" But, no less, he could be terrible at need, could
unsheathe a formidable sword and make short work of Commandants.
Banter lurked beneath his simplicity, mocking laughter behind his
tears--for he had tears at need, like any woman nowadays who says
to her husband, "Give me a carriage, or I shall go into a
consumption."
For the merchant the world is a bale of goods or a mass of
circulating bills; for most young men it is a woman, and for a
woman here and there it is a man; for a certain order of mind it
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