| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: motionless as the arm of a terra-cotta caryatid; she couldn't set
the plate down while the old gentleman was speaking!
He was quite silent after this, still wearing the slight flush on
his cheek. Don't ever think the poetry is dead in an old man
because his forehead is wrinkled, or that his manhood has left him
when his hand trembles! If they ever WERE there, they ARE there
still!
By and by we got talking again. - Does a poet love the verses
written through him, do you think, Sir? - said the divinity-
student.
So long as they are warm from his mind, carry any of his animal
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: crooked--crooked as your teeth. We had to let the girder down
again. I suppose we must trim it off some way, to get a level
bearing, and make the tower weak, just to match your sacre bad work,
eh?"
"Well," said Prosper, pleasant and quiet enough, "I'm sorry for
that, Raoul. Perhaps I could put that templet straight, or perhaps
the girder might be a little warped and twisted, eh? What? Suppose
we measure it."
Sure enough, they found the long timber was not half seasoned and
had corkscrewed itself out of shape at least three inches.
Vaillantcoeur sat on the sill of the doorway and did not even look
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