| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: had a view of apple orchards. That was before the Middletons built
their house in front of us."
"It must be a great advantage to live at the top of a hill," said
Katharine. Mrs. Denham agreed effusively, as if her opinion of
Katharine's sense had risen.
"Yes, indeed, we find it very healthy," she said, and she went on, as
people who live in the suburbs so often do, to prove that it was
healthier, more convenient, and less spoilt than any suburb round
London. She spoke with such emphasis that it was quite obvious that
she expressed unpopular views, and that her children disagreed with
her.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: favor of du Bousquier. To others the purveyor seemed dangerous,--a man
of bad habits, capable of anything. In the provinces, as in Paris, men
before the public eye are like that statue in the fine allegorical
tale of Addison, for which two knights on arriving near it fought; for
one saw it white, the other saw it black. Then, when they were both
off their horses, they saw it was white one side and black the other.
A third knight coming along declared it red.
When the chevalier went home that night, he made many reflections, as
follows:--
"It is high time now to spread a rumor of my marriage with
Mademoiselle Cormon. It will leak out from the d'Esgrignon salon, and
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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 Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: a friend. It was never found in those things which to others
seemed things of importance. At the age of twelve she passed the
Matriculation of the Madras University, and awoke to find herself
famous throughout India. "Honestly," she said to me, "I was not
pleased; such things did not appeal to me." But here, in a
letter from Hyderabad, bidding one "share a March morning" with
her, there is, at the mere contact of the sun, this outburst:
"Come and share my exquisite March morning with me: this
sumptuous blaze of gold and sapphire sky; these scarlet lilies
that adorn the sunshine; the voluptuous scents of neem and
champak and serisha that beat upon the languid air with their
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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 Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: Atterbury, with his priceless polished poll, busy in the main office
room dictating letters to a shorthand countess, who has got pomp and a
pompadour that is no less than a guarantee to investors.
There is a bookkeeper and an assistant, and a general atmosphere of
varnish and culpability.
At another desk the eye is relieved by the sight of an ordinary man,
attired with unscrupulous plainness, sitting with his feet up, eating
apples, with his obnoxious hat on the back of his head. That man is no
other than Colonel Tecumseh (once "Parleyvoo") Pickens, the vice-
president of the company.
"No recherche rags for me," I says to Atterbury, when we was
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