| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: Veronica loved beautiful things, and the beauty of undraped
loveliness not least among them; but these were pictures that did
but insist coarsely upon the roundness of women's bodies. The
windows of these rooms were obscured with draperies, their floors
a carpet patchwork; the china ornaments on their mantels were of
a class apart. After the first onset several of the women who
had apartments to let said she would not do for them, and in
effect dismissed her. This also struck her as odd.
About many of these houses hung a mysterious taint as of
something weakly and commonly and dustily evil; the women who
negotiated the rooms looked out through a friendly manner as
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: know what you mean by your allusions to your having fallen off,"
Paul Overt observed with pardonable hypocrisy. He liked his
companion so much now that the fact of any decline of talent or of
care had ceased for the moment to be vivid to him.
"Don't say that - don't say that," St. George returned gravely, his
head resting on the top of the sofa-back and his eyes on the
ceiling. "You know perfectly what I mean. I haven't read twenty
pages of your book without seeing that you can't help it."
"You make me very miserable," Paul ecstatically breathed.
"I'm glad of that, for it may serve as a kind of warning. Shocking
enough it must be, especially to a young fresh mind, full of faith
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