| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: will presently hear, that devoted man has got his reward. For
her, also, your sympathies are invited.
The rest of this great holiday, too--five days there are left of
it--is beyond the limits of our design. You see fitfully a
slender figure in a dusty brown suit and heather mixture
stockings, and brown shoes not intended to be cycled in, flitting
Londonward through Hampshire and Berkshire and Surrey, going
economically--for excellent reasons. Day by day he goes on,
riding fitfully and for the most part through bye-roads, but
getting a few miles to the north-eastward every day. He is a
narrow-chested person, with a nose hot and tanned at the bridge
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: and I heard in spirit the church-bells clamouring all over Europe,
and the psalms of a thousand churches.
At length a human sound struck upon my ear - a cry strangely
modulated between pathos and derision; and looking across the
valley, I saw a little urchin sitting in a meadow, with his hands
about his knees, and dwarfed to almost comical smallness by the
distance. But the rogue had picked me out as I went down the road,
from oak wood on to oak wood, driving Modestine; and he made me the
compliments of the new country in this tremulous high-pitched
salutation. And as all noises are lovely and natural at a
sufficient distance, this also, coming through so much clean hill
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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 Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: as the Princes do not come to us, we must go to the Princes."
"I am enchanted to learn that you think of introducing our dear
Victurnien into society," the Chevalier put in adroitly. "He ought not
to bury his talents in a hole like this town. The best fortune that he
can look for here is to come across some Norman girl" (mimicking the
accent), "country-bred, stupid, and rich. What could he make of
her?--his wife? Oh! good Lord!"
"I sincerely hope that he will defer his marriage until he has
obtained some great office or appointment under the Crown," returned
the gray-haired Marquis. "Still, there are serious difficulties in the
way."
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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 Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: reckless. It began to look as if every member of the nineteen would
not only spend his whole forty thousand dollars before receiving-
day, but be actually in debt by the time he got the money. In some
cases light-headed people did not stop with planning to spend, they
really spent--on credit. They bought land, mortgages, farms,
speculative stocks, fine clothes, horses, and various other things,
paid down the bonus, and made themselves liable for the rest--at ten
days. Presently the sober second thought came, and Halliday noticed
that a ghastly anxiety was beginning to show up in a good many
faces. Again he was puzzled, and didn't know what to make of it.
"The Wilcox kittens aren't dead, for they weren't born; nobody's
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
