| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: he felt that he learnt quite as much about the character of the
speakers themselves as of those whom they discussed.
To be cheated by a friend was scarcely censurable, but he could find
no comdemnation strong enough for him who was outwitted by a foe. Or
again, to dupe the incredulous might argue wit, but to take in the
unsuspecting was veritably a crime.
The praise of a critic who had courage to point out his defects
pleased him; and plainness of speech excited in him no hostility. It
was against the cunning rather of the secretive person that he guarded
himself, as against a hidden snare.
The calumniator he detested more than the robber or the thief, in
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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 Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: know ...." Unable to complete her thought, she sank down upon a
pillowy divan, stretched out an arm, cried: "Fulmer! Fulmer!"
and, while Susy Lansing stood in the middle of the room with
widening eyes, a man emerged from the more deeply cushioned and
scented twilight of some inner apartment, and she saw with
surprise Nat Fulmer, the good Nat Fulmer of the New Hampshire
bungalow and the ubiquitous progeny, standing before her in
lordly ease, his hands in his pockets, a cigarette between his
lips, his feet solidly planted in the insidious depths of one of
Violet Melrose's white leopard skins.
"Susy!" he shouted with open arms; and Mrs. Melrose murmured:
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