| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: then given, and to carry the document to the German consul. It was
an act of private revenge; it fell long out of date in the good
days of Dr. Stuebel, and had no result but to discredit the
gentleman who volunteered it. Colonel de Coetlogon had his faults,
but they did not touch his honour; his bare word would always
outweigh a waggon-load of such denunciations; and he declares his
behaviour on that night to have been blameless. The question was
besides inquired into on the spot by Sir John Thurston, and the
colonel honourably acquitted. But during the weeks that were now
to follow, Knappe believed the contrary; he believed not only that
Moors and others had supplied ammunition and Klein commanded in 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 Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: board that night.
Jennie was flitting in and out between the sitting-room and the
garden, her hands full of blossoms, filling the china jars on the
mantel: none of them contained Quigg's contribution. Patsy was
flat on his back on the small patch of green surrounding the
porch, playing circus-elephant with Stumpy, who stood over him
with leveled head.
Up the hill, but a few rods away, Cully was grazing the Big
Gray--the old horse munching tufts of fresh, sweet grass sprinkled
with dandelions. Cully walked beside him. Now and then he lifted
one of his legs, examining the hoof critically for possible tender
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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 Bucolics by Virgil: And thou thereof, like them, shalt quittance claim."
MOPSUS
How, how repay thee for a song so rare?
For not the whispering south-wind on its way
So much delights me, nor wave-smitten beach,
Nor streams that race adown their bouldered beds.
MENALCAS
First this frail hemlock-stalk to you I give,
Which taught me "Corydon with love was fired
For fair Alexis," ay, and this beside,
"Who owns the flock?- Meliboeus?"
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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 Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: bodies? though surely those laws are much more inhuman, which forge
adamantine fetters to bind minds together, that never can mingle
in social communion! What indeed can equal the wretchedness of that
state, in which there is no alternative, but to extinguish the
affections, or encounter infamy?'
CHAPTER 12
"TOWARDS midnight Mr. Venables entered my chamber; and, with calm
audacity preparing to go to bed, he bade me make haste, 'for that
was the best place for husbands and wives to end their differences.
He had been drinking plentifully to aid his courage.
"I did not at first deign to reply. But perceiving that he
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