| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: appeared to ripple and heave with a fluid splendor. The colors
had lost none of their warmth, the outlines none of their pure
precision; it seemed to Wyant like some magical flower which had
burst suddenly from the mould of darkness and oblivion.
He turned to Miss Lombard with a movement of comprehension.
"Ah, I understand--you couldn't part with it, after all!" he cried.
"No--I couldn't part with it," she answered.
"It's too beautiful,--too beautiful,"--he assented.
"Too beautiful?" She turned on him with a curious stare. "I
have never thought it beautiful, you know."
He gave back the stare. "You have never--"
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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 Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: to expose Joanna to the hazards of a fight, had not yet decided
between them when he reached the borders of the wood.
At this point Sir Daniel had turned a little to his left, and then
plunged straight under a grove of very lofty timber. His party had
then formed to a narrower front, in order to pass between the
trees, and the track was trod proportionally deeper in the snow.
The eye followed it under the leafless tracery of the oaks, running
direct and narrow; the trees stood over it, with knotty joints and
the great, uplifted forest of their boughs; there was no sound,
whether of man or beast - not so much as the stirring of a robin;
and over the field of snow the winter sun lay golden among netted
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