| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: and it was a characteristic of the Folk to like new
things. When I saw that he refused fruits and
vegetables, I caught birds for him and squirrels and
young rabbits. (We Folk were meat-eaters, as well as
vegetarians, and we were adept at catching small game.)
The puppy ate the meat and thrived. As well as I can
estimate, I must have had him over a week. And then,
coming back to the cave one day with a nestful of
young-hatched pheasants, I found Lop-Ear had killed the
puppy and was just beginning to eat him. I sprang for
Lop-Ear,--the cave was small,--and we went at it tooth
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great
attention and gave orders to an /abbe/, who instantly disappeared.
Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed
the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and
refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing
anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome
tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity
than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his
beauty as much as to his voice.
" 'It's a woman,' said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear
him. 'There's some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal
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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 Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: you." Melmoth started, sprung from his bed,--it was broad
daylight. He looked round,--there was no human being in the room
but himself. He felt a slight pain in the wrist of his right arm.
He looked at it, it was black and blue, as from the recent gripe of
a strong hand.
Balzac's tale, Melmoth Reconciled, in Vol. IV., furnishes a
solution to the terrible problem which Maturin has stated in this
story.--EDITOR'S NOTE.
Introduction to "A Mystery with a Moral"
The next Mystery Story is like no other in these volumes. The
editor's defense lies in the plea that Laurence Sterne is not like
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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 The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: ONE thing in this new country very particularly strikes a
stranger, and that is the number of antiquities. Already
there have been many cycles of population succeeding each
other, and passing away and leaving behind them relics.
These, standing on into changed times, strike the imagination
as forcibly as any pyramid or feudal tower. The towns, like
the vineyards, are experimentally founded: they grow great
and prosper by passing occasions; and when the lode comes to
an end, and the miners move elsewhere, the town remains
behind them, like Palmyra in the desert. I suppose there
are, in no country in the world, so many deserted towns as
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