| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: star; Magdalena Bay; the shark-fishing; the mysterious lifting and
shuddering of the schooner; the beach-combers' junk, with its
staring red eyes; Hoang, naked to the waist, gleaming with sweat
and whale-oil; the ambergris; the race to beach the sinking
schooner; the never-to-be-forgotten night when he and Moran had
camped together on the beach; Hoang taken prisoner, and the
hideous filing of his teeth; the beach-combers, silent and
watchful behind their sand breastworks; the Chinaman he had killed
twitching and hic-coughing at his feet; Moran turned Berserker,
bursting down upon him through a haze of smoke; Charlie dying in
the hammock aboard the schooner, ordering his funeral with its
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.
'Well could he ride, and often men would say
That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!
And controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.
'But quickly on this side the verdict went;
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
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