| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: handsome, but not in Winifred's way.
When I knew her she was little and fragile,
very pink and white, with a splendid head and a
face like fine old lace, somehow,--but perhaps
I always think of that because she wore a lace
scarf on her hair. She had such a flavor
of life about her. She had known Gordon and
Livingstone and Beaconsfield when she was
young,--every one. She was the first woman
of that sort I'd ever known. You know how it
is in the West,--old people are poked out of
Alexander's Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: national debt, which, somehow or other, he proves to be a
great national bulwark and blessing. He passed the greater part
of his life in the purlieus of Little Britain, until of late
years,
when, having become rich, and grown into the dignity of a
Sunday cane, he begins to take his pleasure and see the world.
He has therefore made several excursions to Hampstead,
Highgate, and other neighboring towns, where he has passed
whole afternoons in looking back upon the metropolis through
a telescope, and endeavoring to descry the steeple of St.
Bartholomew's. Not a stage-coachman of Bull-and-Mouth
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