| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: have it there, to know my way back to it, but there was the school
tugging at me. I expect I was a good deal distraught and
inattentive that morning, recalling what I could of the beautiful
strange people I should presently see again. Oddly enough I had no
doubt in my mind that they would be glad to see me . . . Yes, I
must have thought of the garden that morning just as a jolly sort
of place to which one might resort in the interludes of a strenuous
scholastic career.
"I didn't go that day at all. The next day was a half
holiday, and that may have weighed with me. Perhaps, too, my state
of inattention brought down impositions upon me and docked the
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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 Europeans by Henry James: been neither frequent nor intimate. It was not that Mrs. Acton
had failed to appreciate Madame M; auunster's charms;
on the contrary, her perception of the graces of manner and
conversation of her brilliant visitor had been only too acute.
Mrs. Acton was, as they said in Boston, very "intense,"
and her impressions were apt to be too many for her.
The state of her health required the restriction of emotion;
and this is why, receiving, as she sat in her eternal
arm-chair, very few visitors, even of the soberest local type,
she had been obliged to limit the number of her interviews
with a lady whose costume and manner recalled to her imagination--
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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 Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: upon all fours far outspread to take up the shock. He was on
his feet in an instant and, leaping with the agility of the
monkey he was, he gained the safety of a low limb as Horta,
the boar, rushed futilely beneath.
Thus it was that Tarzan learned by experience the limitations
as well as the possibilities of his strange weapon.
He lost a long rope on this occasion, but he knew that had
it been Sabor who had thus dragged him from his perch the
outcome might have been very different, for he would have
lost his life, doubtless, into the bargain.
It took him many days to braid a new rope, but when,
Tarzan of the Apes |
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 Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: rooms, kitchens, and servants' hall; to the right, the wood-house,
coal-house, and offices, whose doors, walls, and windows were
decorated with designs kept exquisitely clean. The daylight, threading
its way between four red walls chequered with white lines, caught rosy
tints and reflections which gave a mysterious grace and fantastic
appearance to faces, and even to trifling details.
A second house, exactly like the building on the street, and called in
Flanders the "back-quarter," stood at the farther end of the court-
yard, and was used exclusively as the family dwelling. The first room
on the ground-floor was a parlor, lighted by two windows on the court-
yard, and two more looking out upon a garden which was of the same
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