| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Master of the World by Jules Verne: At this moment I felt a breath of air; a breeze came from the east.
The sky swiftly cleared. The hollow was filled with light from the
rays of the sun which appeared midway between the horizon and the
zenith.
A cry escaped me! The crest of the rocky wall rose a hundred feet
above me. And on the eastern side was revealed that easily
recognizable pinnacle, the rock like a mounting eagle. It was the
same that had held the attention of Mr. Elias Smith and myself, when
we had looked up at it from the outer side of the Great Eyrie.
Thus there was no further doubt. In its flight during the night the
airship had covered the distance between Lake Erie and North
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: What is there in life so difficult as to stop a book?" If I
wrote one, it would be as long as ten 'Sir Charles Grandisons,'
and then I never should end it, because I should die. And there
would be nobody left to read it, because each reader would have
been dead long before."
"But the book amused you!" interrupted Kate. "I know it did."
"It was so absurd that I laughed till I cried; and it makes no
difference whether you cry laughing or cry crying; it is
equally bad when your glasses come off. Never mind. Whom did
you see on the Avenue?"
"O, we saw Philip on horseback. He rides so beautifully; he
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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 Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: green side was dotted with the camps of travelling families:
one cumbered with a great waggonful of household stuff,
settlers going to occupy a ranche they had taken up in
Mendocino, or perhaps Tehama County; another, a party in dust
coats, men and women, whom we found camped in a grove on the
roadside, all on pleasure bent, with a Chinaman to cook for
them, and who waved their hands to us as we drove by.
CHAPTER IV - THE SCOT ABROAD
A FEW pages back, I wrote that a man belonged, in these days,
to a variety of countries; but the old land is still the true
love, the others are but pleasant infidelities. Scotland is
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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 An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: "God grant it!" said his wife, taking out a gold snuff-box which had
again seen the light under the Consulate.
"There is something stirring in the neighborhood," remarked Monsieur
d'Hauteserre to the abbe. "Malin has been two days at Gondreville."
"Malin!" cried Laurence, roused by the name, though her sleep was
sound.
"Yes," replied the abbe, "but he leaves to-night; everybody is
conjecturing the motive of this hasty visit."
"That man," said Laurence, "is the evil genius of our two houses."
The countess had been dreaming of her cousins and the young
Hauteserres; she saw them in peril. Her beautiful eyes grew fixed and
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