| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: sitting up so very late, he honestly slumbered a fool's
allowance.
There may be an excess even of informing light. Niepce, a
Frenchman, discovered "actinism," that power in the sun's rays
which produces a chemical effect; that granite rocks, and stone
structures, and statues of metal "are all alike destructively
acted upon during the hours of sunshine, and, but for provisions
of Nature no less wonderful, would soon perish under the delicate
touch of the most subtle of the agencies of the universe." But he
observed that "those bodies which underwent this change during
the daylight possessed the power of restoring themselves to their
Walking |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: She was a homely woman at any time, and in her bloomers she
looked like a soup-bone. Under ordinary circumstances she'd have
seen the puffs from the staircase and have asked what they cost
and told me they didn't match, in one breath. But she had
something else on her mind. She padded over to the counter in
her gym shoes, and for once she'd forgotten her legs.
"May I speak to you, Minnie?" she asked.
"You mostly do," I said. "There isn't a new rule about speaking,
is there?"
"This is important, Minnie," she said, rolling her eyes around as
she always did when she was excited. "I'm in such a state of
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