| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: what girls is comin' to."
This depreciation of the Young Lady in Grey was hardly to
Hoopdriver's taste.
"Fashion," said he, taking up his change. "Fashion is all the go
with you ladies--and always was. You'll be wearing 'em yourself
before a couple of years is out."
"Nice they'd look on my figger," said the barmaid, with a titter.
"No--I ain't one of your fashionable sort. Gracious no! I
shouldn't feel as if I'd anything on me, not more than if I'd
forgot-- Well, there! I'm talking." She put down the glass
abruptly. "I dessay I'm old fashioned," she said, and walked
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: that she would have been more satisfactory if she had been less ingenuous.
"Do you suppose it's something to which Jeffrey Aspern's letters and papers--
I mean the things in her possession--have reference?"
"I daresay it is!" my companion exclaimed as if this were a very
happy suggestion. "I have never looked at any of those things."
"None of them? Then how do you know what they are?"
"I don't," said Miss Tita placidly. "I have never had them in my hands.
But I have seen them when she has had them out."
"Does she have them out often?"
"Not now, but she used to. She is very fond of them."
"In spite of their being compromising?"
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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 Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: to the remark she had made as to Genovese's cavatina.
"But, /carino/," said she in Emilio's ear, "are not you as far better
than every expression of love, as cause is superior to effect?"
After handing the Duchess to her gondola, Emilio waited for Vendramin
to go to Florian's.
The Cafe Florian at Venice is a quite undefinable institution.
Merchants transact their business there, and lawyers meet to talk over
their most difficult cases. Florian's is at once an Exchange, a green-
room, a newspaper office, a club, a confessional,--and it is so well
adapted to the needs of the place that some Venetian women never know
what their husband's business may be, for, if they have a letter to
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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 Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: big, reeking, musty warehouses, he gave way to the habit that had won
for him his title. Subdued, yet clear, with each note as true and
liquid as a bobolink's, his whistle tinkled about the dim, cold
mountains of brick like drops of rain falling into a hidden pool. He
followed an air, but it swam mistily into a swirling current of
improvisation. You could cull out the trill of mountain brooks, the
staccato of green rushes shivering above chilly lagoons, the pipe of
sleepy birds.
Rounding a corner, the whistler collided with a mountain of blue and
brass.
"So," observed the mountain calmly, "You are already pack. Und dere
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