| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: This was so singularly the case that it had presumably
much to do with the fact as to which, at the present day,
I am at a loss for a different explanation: I allude to my
unnatural composure on the subject of another school for Miles.
What I remember is that I was content not, for the time,
to open the question, and that contentment must have sprung
from the sense of his perpetually striking show of cleverness.
He was too clever for a bad governess, for a parson's daughter,
to spoil; and the strangest if not the brightest thread
in the pensive embroidery I just spoke of was the impression
I might have got, if I had dared to work it out, that he was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: me only in the vaguest form and that if I had been moved to put it
to the test my very real interest in her must be held responsible.
Her blush died away, but a pair of still prettier tears glistened
in its track. "If you ever hear such a thing said again you can
say it's a horrid lie!" I had brought on a commotion deeper than
any I was prepared for; but it was explained in some degree by the
next words she uttered: "I'm happy to say there's nothing the
matter with any part of me whatever, not the least little thing!"
She spoke with her habitual complacency, with triumphant assurance;
she smiled again, and I could see how she wished that she hadn't so
taken me up. She turned it off with a laugh. "I've good eyes,
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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 First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of
the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different
parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain
face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile,
must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make
that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after
separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than
friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced
between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war,
you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides,
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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 Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: approaching misery.' (7)
The whole body, too, swore the Covenant, to which ceremony
the epitaph at the head of this chapter seems to refer.
A report that Dalzell was approaching drove them from Lanark
to Bathgate, where, on the evening of Monday the 26th, the
wearied army stopped. But at twelve o'clock the cry, which
served them for a trumpet, of 'Horse! horse!' and 'Mount the
prisoner!' resounded through the night-shrouded town, and
called the peasants from their well-earned rest to toil
onwards in their march. The wind howled fiercely over the
moorland; a close, thick, wetting rain descended. Chilled to
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