| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: convert them in their turn when you go home.'
I think I see my father's face! I would rather tackle the
Gaetulian lion in his den than embark on such an enterprise against
the family theologian.
But now the hunt was up; priest and soldier were in full cry for my
conversion; and the Work of the Propagation of the Faith, for which
the people of Cheylard subscribed forty-eight francs ten centimes
during 1877, was being gallantly pursued against myself. It was an
odd but most effective proselytising. They never sought to
convince me in argument, where I might have attempted some defence;
but took it for granted that I was both ashamed and terrified at my
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: about the lady in the Pullman car I laughed for five minutes.
"That showed what a comparative thing life is. A man may see so much
that he'd be bored to turn his head to look at a $3,000,000 fire or
Joe Weber or the Adriatic Sea. But let him herd sheep for a spell,
and you'll see him splitting his ribs laughing at 'Curfew Shall Not
Ring To-night,' or really enjoying himself playing cards with ladies.
"By-and-by Ogden gets out a decanter of Bourbon, and then there is a
total eclipse of sheep.
"'Do you remember reading in the papers, about a month ago,' says he,
'about a train hold-up on the M. K. & T.? The express agent was
shot through the shoulder, and about $15,000 in currency taken. And
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