| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: hidden still left; but some day, you may be sure, their turn will
come.
One day my charwoman, a working man's wife, came to beg me to honor
her sister's wedding with my presence. If you are to realize what this
wedding was like you must know that I paid my charwoman, poor
creature, four francs a month; for which sum she came every morning to
make my bed, clean my shoes, brush my clothes, sweep the room, and
make ready my breakfast, before going to her day's work of turning the
handle of a machine, at which hard drudgery she earned five-pence. Her
husband, a cabinetmaker, made four francs a day at his trade; but as
they had three children, it was all that they could do to gain an
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: Naaman.
LE CAPPADOCIEN. Il n'a pas eu peur?
SECOND SOLDAT. Mais non. Le tetrarque lui a envoye la bague.
LE CAPPADOCIEN. Quelle bague?
SECOND SOLDAT. La bague de la mort. Ainsi, il n'a pas eu peur.
LE CAPPADOCIEN. Cependant, c'est terrible d'etrangler un roi.
PREMIER SOLDAT. Pourquoi? Les rois n'ont qu'un cou, comme les
autres hommes.
LE CAPPADOCIEN. Il me semble que c'est terrible.
LE JEUNE SYRIEN. Mais la princesse se leve! Elle quitte la table!
Elle a l'air tres ennuyee. Ah! elle vient par ici. Oui, elle vient
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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 Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: are far lower than the class whence Derozio, the man who imitated
Byron, sprung--will turn out a writer or a poet; and then we shall
know how they live and what they feel. In the meantime, any
stories about them cannot be absolutely correct in fact or
inference.
Miss Vezzis came from across the Borderline to look after some
children who belonged to a lady until a regularly ordained nurse
could come out. The lady said Miss Vezzis was a bad, dirty nurse
and inattentive. It never struck her that Miss Vezzis had her own
life to lead and her own affairs to worry over, and that these
affairs were the most important things in the world to Miss Vezzis.
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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 God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: service is mingled with activities of a baser sort, in which service
is a little warped and deflected by old traditions and usage, by
mercenary and commercial considerations, by some inherent or special
degradation of purpose. The spirit of God will not let the believer
rest until his life is readjusted and as far as possible freed from
the waste of these base diversions. For example a scientific
investigator, lit and inspired by great inquiries, may be hampered
by the conditions of his professorship or research fellowship, which
exact an appearance of "practical" results. Or he may be obliged to
lecture or conduct classes. He may be able to give but half his
possible gift to the work of his real aptitude, and that at a
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