| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: others, unfinished as it is?"
Lady Treffinger paled perceptibly, but it was not the pallor
of confusion. When she spoke there was a sharp tremor in her
smooth voice, the edge of a resentment that tore her like pain.
"I think his man has some such impression, but I believe it to be
utterly unfounded. I cannot find that he ever expressed any wish
concerning the disposition of the picture to any of his friends.
Unfortunately, Sir Hugh was not always discreet in his remarks to
his servants."
"Captain Gresham, Lady Ellingham, and Miss Ellingham,"
announced a servant, appearing at the door.
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: women as long as they feel themselves young, and in a position to
choose a husband. France knows that the political system of Napoleon
resulted in making many widows. Under that regime heiresses were
entirely out of proportion in numbers to the bachelors who wanted to
marry. When the Consulate restored internal order, external
difficulties made the marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon as difficult to
arrange as it had been in the past. If, on the one hand, Rose-Marie-
Victoire refused to marry an old man, on the other, the fear of
ridicule forbade her to marry a very young one.
In the provinces, families marry their sons early to escape the
conscription. In addition to all this, she was obstinately determined
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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 The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: the tale must necessarily lose all the interest which was
attached to it by the flexible voice and intelligent features of
the gifted narrator. Yet still, read aloud to an undoubting
audience by the doubtful light of the closing evening, or in
silence by a decaying taper, and amidst the solitude of a half-
lighted apartment, it may redeem its character as a good ghost
story. Miss Seward always affirmed that she had derived her
information from an authentic source, although she suppressed the
names of the two persons chiefly concerned. I will not avail
myself of any particulars I may have since received concerning
the localities of the detail, but suffer them to rest under the
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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 Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: walked toward a high picket fence which closed the garden on the
side nearest its neighbours. They shook the various pickets without
much caution, for the wind made noise enough to kill any other sound.
Amster called to Muller, he had found a loose picket, and his strong
young arms had torn it out easily. Muller motioned to the other
three to join them. A moment later they were all in the garden,
walking carefully toward the house.
The door was closed but there were no bars at the windows of the
ground floor. Amster looked inquiringly at the commissioner and
the latter nodded and said, "All right, go ahead."
The next minute Amster had broken in through one pane of the window
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