| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: same foot, the same hand. Eugenie, the younger, was fair-haired, like
her mother, Angelique was dark-haired, like the father. But they both
had the same complexion,--a skin of the pearly whiteness which shows
the richness and purity of the blood, where the color rises through a
tissue like that of the jasmine, soft, smooth, and tender to the
touch. Eugenie's blue eyes and the brown eyes of Angelique had an
expression of artless indifference, of ingenuous surprise, which was
rendered by the vague manner with which the pupils floated on the
fluid whiteness of the eyeball. They were both well-made; the rather
thin shoulders would develop later. Their throats, long veiled,
delighted the eye when their husbands requested them to wear low
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: This is characteristic. For no people in the world are so fond or
so long-suffering with children - children make the mirth and the
adornment of their homes, serving them for playthings and for
picture-galleries. 'Happy is the man that has his quiver full of
them.' The stray bastard is contended for by rival families; and
the natural and the adopted children play and grow up together
undistinguished. The spoiling, and I may almost say the
deification, of the child, is nowhere carried so far as in the
eastern islands; and furthest, according to my opportunities of
observation, in the Paumotu group, the so-called Low or Dangerous
Archipelago. I have seen a Paumotuan native turn from me with
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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 Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: now flows, up through what is now Worcestershire, then up through
Staffordshire, then through Derbyshire, into Yorkshire, and so on
through Durham and Northumberland, till your find yourself stopped
by the Ettrick hills in Scotland; while all to the westward of
you, where is now the greater part of England, was open sea. You
may say, if you know anything of the geography of England,
"Impossible! That would be to paddle over the tops of high
mountains; over the top of the Peak in Derbyshire, over the top of
High Craven and Whernside and Pen-y-gent and Cross Fell, and to
paddle too over the Cheviot Hills, which part England and
Scotland." I know it, my child, I know it. But so it was once on
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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 Daisy Miller by Henry James: "Since you have mentioned it," she said, "I AM engaged."
* * * Winterbourne looked at her; he had stopped laughing.
"You don't believe!" she added.
He was silent a moment; and then, "Yes, I believe it," he said.
"Oh, no, you don't!" she answered. "Well, then--I am not!"
The young girl and her cicerone were on their way to the gate
of the enclosure, so that Winterbourne, who had but lately entered,
presently took leave of them. A week afterward he went to dine
at a beautiful villa on the Caelian Hill, and, on arriving,
dismissed his hired vehicle. The evening was charming, and he
promised himself the satisfaction of walking home beneath the Arch
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