| 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: productions nearly every week until the following January before a second
acceptance came. It was twenty five dollars this time, and almost made me
feel again that I could handsomely support Ethel. But not quite. After
the first charming elation at earning money with my pen, those weeks of
refusal had caused me to think more soberly. And though I was now bent
upon becoming an author and leaving Nassau Street, I burned no bridges
behind me, but merely filled my spare hours with writing and with showing
it to Ethel."
"It was now that the second area of perturbation of my life came to me. I
say the second, because the first had been the recent dawning belief that
Ethel thought about me when I was not there to remind her of myself. This
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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 Death of the Lion by Henry James: awfully to the rash footfall - I mean the casual remark - in the
cold Valhalla of her memory. Mrs. Wimbush delights in her wit and
says there's nothing so charming as to hear Mr. Paraday draw it
out. He's perpetually detailed for this job, and he tells me it
has a peculiarly exhausting effect. Every one's beginning - at the
end of two days - to sidle obsequiously away from her, and Mrs.
Wimbush pushes him again and again into the breach. None of the
uses I have yet seen him put to infuriate me quite so much. He
looks very fagged and has at last confessed to me that his
condition makes him uneasy - has even promised me he'll go straight
home instead of returning to his final engagements in town. Last
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