| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: dirt deliberately flung into his eyes by his antagonist. In that moment of
shock his grip on the revolver was broken. In the next moment he felt a
smashing darkness descend upon his brain, and in the midst of the darkness
even the darkness ceased.
But the pocket-miner fired again and again, until the revolver was empty. Then
he tossed it from him and, breathing heavily, sat down on the dead man's legs.
The miner was sobbing and struggling for breath. "Measly skunk!" he panted;
"a-campin' on my trail an' lettin' me do the work, an' then shootin' me in the
back!"
He was half crying from anger and exhaustion, He peered at the face of the
dead man. It was sprinkled with loose dirt and gravel, and it was difficult to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mountains by Stewart Edward White: By and by we saw a little spark far ahead of us
like a star. The smell of fresh wood smoke and stale
damp fire came to our nostrils. We gained the star
and found it to be a log smouldering; and up the
hill other stars red as blood. So we knew that we
had crossed the zone of an almost extinct forest fire,
and looked on the scattered camp-fires of an army
of destruction.
The moon rose. We knew it by touches of white
light on peaks infinitely far above us; not at all by
the relieving of the heavy velvet blackness in which
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