| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: could have done it. Oh, the Wolf's tracks are all over this job."
"No doubt about that. I told you I recognized York Neil by him
being shy that trigger finger I fanned off down at Tombstone.
Well, they say he's one of the Wolf's standbys."
"Yes. I warned him two months ago that if he didn't break away
he'd die sudden. Somehow I couldn't persuade him he was an awful
sick man right then. You saw four of these hold-ups in all,
didn't you, Val?"
"Four's right. First off Neil, then the fellow I took to be the
Wolf. After he went out a bowlegged fellow came in, and last a
slim little kid that was a sure enough amateur, the way his gun
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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 Princess by Alfred Tennyson: Than sick men health--yours, yours, not mine--but half
Without you; with you, whole; and of those halves
You worthiest; and howe'er you block and bar
Your heart with system out from mine, I hold
That it becomes no man to nurse despair,
But in the teeth of clenched antagonisms
To follow up the worthiest till he die:
Yet that I came not all unauthorized
Behold your father's letter.'
On one knee
Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dashed
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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 Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: which told me that his regret was for something more than his lost
sight, for great power of which he had been robbed.
"Then why do they call you 'the Doge'?" I asked.
"Oh, it is a joke. I am a Venetian noble, and I might have been a doge
like any one else."
"What is your name?"
"Here, in Paris, I am Pere Canet," he said. "It was the only way of
spelling my name on the register. But in Italy I am Marco Facino Cane,
Prince of Varese."
"What, are you descended from the great /condottiere/ Facino Cane,
whose lands won by the sword were taken by the Dukes of Milan?"
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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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac: "There's eight o'clock striking now," cried the countess, in terror.
She dared not stay away any longer from her guests; but before
re-entering the salon, she paused a moment under the peristyle of the
staircase, listening if any sound were breaking the silence of the
street. She smiled at Brigitte's husband, who was standing sentinel at
the door, and whose eyes seemed stupefied by the intensity of his
attention to the murmurs of the street and night.
Madame de Dey re-entered her salon, affecting gaiety, and began to
play loto with the young people; but after a while she complained of
feeling ill, and returned to her chimney-corner.
Such was the situation of affairs, and of people's minds in the house
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