| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now."
"You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish
it.' "
"At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort
that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this
secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you."
She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as
ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-
de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and
jealous.
"Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: factory which worked in close connection with his uncle's
tannery. He gave me a short history of events at home. The
uncle had started with small capital, and during the war had
made enough to buy outright the tannery in which he had
had shares. The story of his adventures since the October
revolution is a very good illustration of the rough and ready
way in which theory gets translated into practice. I am
writing it, as nearly as possible, as it was told by the nephew.
During the first revolution, that is from March till October
1917, he fought hard against the workmen, and was one
of the founders of a Soviet of factory owners, the object of
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