| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: visitor whispered to me that he judged something was going on he
oughtn't to interrupt.
"Miss Collop arrived last night," I smiled, "and the Princess has a
thirst for the inedit."
Dora Forbes lifted his bushy brows. "Miss Collop?"
"Guy Walsingham, your distinguished confrere - or shall I say your
formidable rival?"
"Oh!" growled Dora Forbes. Then he added: "Shall I spoil it if I
go in?"
"I should think nothing could spoil it!" I ambiguously laughed.
Dora Forbes evidently felt the dilemma; he gave an irritated crook
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: making fun of him had it not been for the warm blood that suddenly
suffused her cheeks.
"Do you mean that?" he asked unsteadily. "Why?"
"To put a stop to all the nasty gossip of the beach. That's a
pretty good reason, isn't it?"
The temptation was strong enough and sudden enough to make him
waver, but all the disgust came back to him that was his when he
lay in the grass fighting gnats and cursing adventure, and he
answered, -
"No; it is worse than no reason at all. I don't care to marry you
as a matter of expedience--"
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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 Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: aunt, and Chesnel went with him out of the town, tears filling the
eyes of all three. The sudden departure supplied material for
conversation for several evenings; and what was more, it stirred the
rancorous minds of the salon du Croisier to the depths. The forage-
contractor, the president, and others who had vowed to ruin the
d'Esgrignons, saw their prey escaping out of their hands. They had
based their schemes of revenge on a young man's follies, and now he
was beyond their reach.
The tendency in human nature, which often gives a bigot a rake for a
daughter, and makes a frivolous woman the mother of a narrow pietist;
that rule of contraries, which, in all probability, is the "resultant"
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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 Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: resting, I believe, for three hundred years.
But who found out all this about the Coprolites?
Ah--I will tell you; and show you how scientific men, whom
ignorant people sometimes laugh at as dreamers, and mere pickers
up of useless weeds and old stones, may do real service to their
country and their countrymen, as I hope you will some day.
There was a clergyman named Henslow, now with God, honoured by all
scientific men, a kind friend and teacher of mine, loved by every
little child in his parish. His calling was botany: but he knew
something of geology. And some of these Coprolites were brought
him as curiosities, because they had fossils in them. But he (so
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