| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: bordered upon despair. The fall of Antwerp and the doubts and
uncertainties of the Flanders situation weighed terribly upon the
bishop. He was haunted for a time by nightmares of Zeppelins
presently raining fire upon London. These visions became
Apocalyptic. The Zeppelins came to England with the new year, and
with the close of the year came the struggle for Ypres that was
so near to being a collapse of the allied defensive. The events
of the early spring, the bloody failure of British generalship at
Neuve Chapelle, the naval disaster in the Dardanelles, the
sinking of the Falaba, the Russian defeat in the Masurian Lakes,
all deepened the bishop's impression of the immensity of the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: hypothesis. He tried to read, but he could not do so; he went for
a short walk, and was so preoccupied that he narrowly escaped
a cab at the top of Chancery Lane; and at last--a full hour before
his usual time--he went to bed. For a considerable time he could not
sleep because of his memory of the silent confusion of Mr. Bessel's
apartment, and when at length he did attain an uneasy slumber it was
at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing dream of Mr. Bessel.
He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white
and contorted. And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance,
suggested perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency
to act. He even believes that he heard the voice of his fellow
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