| 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: the thing to Lord Dorimont and made Lord Dorimont bag it. What use
HE has for it God only knows. I've the worst forebodings, but
somehow I'm strangely without passion - desperately calm. As I
consider the unconscious, the well-meaning ravages of our
appreciative circle I bow my head in submission to some great
natural, some universal accident; I'm rendered almost indifferent,
in fact quite gay (ha-ha!) by the sense of immitigable fate. Lady
Augusta promises me to trace the precious object and let me have it
through the post by the time Paraday's well enough to play his part
with it. The last evidence is that her maid did give it to his
lordship's valet. One would suppose it some thrilling number of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: turn it into an occasion of licence. They think that everything
is now lawful for them, and do not choose to show themselves free
men and Christians in any other way than by their contempt and
reprehension of ceremonies, of traditions, of human laws; as if
they were Christians merely because they refuse to fast on stated
days, or eat flesh when others fast, or omit the customary
prayers; scoffing at the precepts of men, but utterly passing
over all the rest that belongs to the Christian religion. On the
other hand, they are most pertinaciously resisted by those who
strive after salvation solely by their observance of and
reverence for ceremonies, as if they would be saved merely
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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 Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: and taking copious draughts of old October. A motto was inscribed
over the interior door,--
EAT, DRINK, AND BE MERRY:
an injunction which Sir Ralph and his squire showed remarkable alacrity
in obeying. Old Sir Guy of Gamwell gave Sir Ralph a very cordial welcome,
and entertained him during supper with several of his best stories, enforced
with an occasional slap on the back, and pointed with a peg in the ribs;
a species of vivacious eloquence in which the; old gentleman excelled,
and which is supposed by many of that pleasant variety of the human spectes,
known by the name of choice fellows and comical dogs, to be the genuine
tangible shape of the cream of a good joke.
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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 Aspern Papers by Henry James: if Miss Tita had not; he could not know what I was after and I
could not tell him, though I was conscious he had fantastic
private theories about me which he thought fine and which I,
had I known them, should have thought offensive.
I went upstairs at last but I ascended no higher than the
sala. The door of Miss Bordereau's apartment was open,
showing from the parlor the dimness of a poor candle.
I went toward it with a light tread, and at the same moment
Miss Tita appeared and stood looking at me as I approached.
"She's better--she's better," she said, even before I had asked.
"The doctor has given her something; she woke up, came back to life
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