| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: don't b'lieve he's much over forty."
By this time the plates had been cleared and the teapot
emptied, and the two sisters rose from the table. Ann Eliza, tying
an apron over her black silk, carefully removed all traces of the
meal; then, after washing the cups and plates, and putting them
away in a cupboard, she drew her rocking-chair to the lamp and sat
down to a heap of mending. Evelina, meanwhile, had been roaming
about the room in search of an abiding-place for the clock. A
rosewood what-not with ornamental fret-work hung on the wall beside
the devout young lady in dishabille, and after much weighing of
alternatives the sisters decided to dethrone a broken china vase
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: It is a moment of pleasant excitement, and we begin to conjecture
whether the deer is a buck or a doe, and whose hounds have driven
it in. But when Hose turns to look again, he slackens his stroke,
and says: "I guess we needn't to hurry; he won't get away. It's
astonishin' what a lot of fun a man can get in the course of a
natural life a-chasm' chumps of wood."
We landed on a sand beach at the mouth of a little stream, where a
blazed tree marked the beginning of the Ampersand trail. This line
through the forest was made years ago by that ardent sportsman and
lover of the Adirondacks, Dr. W. W. Ely, of Rochester. Since that
time it has been shortened and improved a little by other
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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 Talisman by Walter Scott: his disguise aside voluntarily.
Meanwhile, the powers of the various Crusading princes, arrayed
under their royal and princely leaders, swept in long order
around the base of the little mound; and as those of each
different country passed by, their commanders advanced a step or
two up the hill, and made a signal of courtesy to Richard and to
the Standard of England, "in sign of regard and amity," as the
protocol of the ceremony heedfully expressed it, "not of
subjection or vassalage." The spiritual dignitaries, who in
those days veiled not their bonnets to created being, bestowed on
the King and his symbol of command their blessing instead of
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: together. They might have issued in a change of dynasty or of laws.
That, issued in the blood of the offenders. Not a girl was enticed
into Louis XV.'s Petit Trianon, or other den of aristocratic
iniquity, but left behind her, parents nursing shame and sullen
indignation, even while they fingered the ill-gotten price of their
daughter's honour; and left behind also, perhaps, some unhappy boy
of her own class, in whom disappointment and jealousy were
transformed--and who will blame him?--into righteous indignation,
and a very sword of God; all the more indignant, and all the more
righteous, if education helped him to see, that the maiden's
acquiescence, her pride in her own shame, was the ugliest feature in
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