| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: to pretty much the same thing. The sort of bond that a trustee will call
safe does not bring the owner more than about three and one-half per
cent.'"
"'Why, there are some six per cent bonds!' I said; and I pointed them out
to him."
"'Selling at 137 7-8, you see,' said Mr. Beverly. 'Deducting the tax,
there you are scaled down again.' He pencilled some swift calculations.
'There,' said he. And I nearly understood them. 'Now I'm not here to stop
your buying that sort of petticoat and canary-bird wafer,' continued Mr.
Beverly. 'It's the regular trustee move, and nobody could criticise you
if you made it. It's what I call thoughtless safety, and it brings you
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: figure of Lydgate; and the satire was much wanted for the
education of young men. That doctrine of the excellence of
women, however chivalrous, is cowardly as well as false. It
is better to face the fact, and know, when you marry, that you
take into your life a creature of equal, if of unlike,
frailties; whose weak human heart beats no more tunefully than
yours.
But it is the object of a liberal education not only to
obscure the knowledge of one sex by another, but to magnify
the natural differences between the two. Man is a creature
who lives not upon bread alone, but principally by catchwords;
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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 Before Adam by Jack London: and then, one day, in the forest, we ran foul of the
Tree People. These creatures were ferocious apes,
nothing more. And yet they were not so different from
us. They were more hairy, it is true; their legs were
a trifle more twisted and gnarly, their eyes a bit
smaller, their necks a bit thicker and shorter, and
their nostrils slightly more like orifices in a sunken
surface; but they had no hair on their faces and on the
palms of their hands and the soles of their feet, and
they made sounds similar to ours with somewhat similar
meanings. After all, the Tree People and the Folk were
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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 Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found
in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto
death" (Phil. ii. 5-8). This most wholesome saying of the Apostle
has been darkened to us by men who, totally misunderstanding the
expressions "form of God," "form of a servant," "fashion,"
"likeness of men," have transferred them to the natures of
Godhead and manhood. Paul's meaning is this: Christ, when He was
full of the form of God and abounded in all good things, so that
He had no need of works or sufferings to be just and saved--for
all these things He had from the very beginning--yet was not
puffed up with these things, and did not raise Himself above us
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