| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: wide along the valleys and across the hills there is not a trace of
habitation, except the heaps of stones and the clumps of straggling
bushes which mark the sites of lost homes. But what is one
country's loss is another country's gain. Canada and the United
States are infinitely the richer for the tough, strong, fearless,
honest men that were dispersed from these lonely straths to make
new homes across the sea.
It was after sundown when I reached the straggling village of
Melvich, and the long day's journey had left me weary. But the
inn, with its red-curtained windows, looked bright and reassuring.
Thoughts of dinner and a good bed comforted my spirit--prematurely.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare: And with that word she spied the hunted boar;
Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red, 901
Like milk and blood being mingled both together,
A second fear through all her sinews spread,
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither: 904
This way she runs, and now she will no further,
But back retires to rate the boar for murther.
A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways,
She treads the path that she untreads again; 908
Her more than haste is mated with delays,
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,
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