| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: PHIPPS. Yes, my lord.
LORD GORING. It is a matter of the gravest importance, Phipps.
PHIPPS. I understand, my lord.
LORD GORING. No one else is to be admitted, under any circumstances.
PHIPPS. I understand, my lord. [Bell rings.]
LORD GORING. Ah! that is probably the lady. I shall see her myself.
[Just as he is going towards the door LORD CAVERSHAM enters from the
smoking-room.]
LORD CAVERSHAM. Well, sir? am I to wait attendance on you?
LORD GORING. [Considerably perplexed.] In a moment, father. Do
excuse me. [LORD CAVERSHAM goes back.] Well, remember my
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: tragically significant of the life-struggle between them. The boys had a game
of diving to the bottom of a ten-foot pool and holding on by submerged roots
to see who could stay under the longest. Paul and Lloyd allowed themselves to
be bantered into making the descent together. When I saw their faces, set and
determined, disappear in the water as they sank swiftly down, I felt a
foreboding of something dreadful. The moments sped, the ripples died away, the
face of the pool grew placid and untroubled, and neither black nor golden head
broke surface in quest of air. We above grew anxious. The longest record of
the longest-winded boy had been exceeded, and still there was no sign. Air
bubbles trickled slowly upward, showing that the breath had been expelled from
their lungs, and after that the bubbles ceased to trickle upward. Each second
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