| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: and then she looked at the glowing bed of anthracite coal in the grate.
"Did you ever see anything so hideous as that fire?" she demanded.
"Did you ever see anything so--so affreux as--as everything?"
She spoke English with perfect purity; but she brought out this
French epithet in a manner that indicated that she was accustomed
to using French epithets.
"I think the fire is very pretty," said the young man,
glancing at it a moment. "Those little blue tongues,
dancing on top of the crimson embers, are extremely picturesque.
They are like a fire in an alchemist's laboratory."
"You are too good-natured, my dear," his companion declared.
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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 The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: The tone of the question was singularly flattering to our hero, who
felt it to imply the great man's now perceiving he had for years
missed something. "Partly, I suppose, because there has been no
particular reason why you should see me. I haven't lived in the
world - in your world. I've spent many years out of England, in
different places abroad."
"Well, please don't do it any more. You must do England - there's
such a lot of it."
"Do you mean I must write about it?" and Paul struck the note of
the listening candour of a child.
"Of course you must. And tremendously well, do you mind? That
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