| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Writhing in pain; and as it tore away
The knotted serpents from its limbs, I heard,
Or seemed to hear, the cry of agony
From its white, parted lips. And still I marvel
At the three Rhodian artists, by whose hands
This miracle was wrought. Yet he beholds
Far nobler works who looks upon the ruins
Of temples in the Forum here in Rome.
If God should give me power in my old age
To build for Him a temple half as grand
As those were in their glory, I should count
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: "Go on till midnight, my good fellow, if you will."
"Well, sirs, they chose me for captain, and a certain Genoese for
lieutenant, and away to go. I would fain have gone ashore after
all, and back to Panama to hear news of the little maid: but that
would have been but a fool's errand. Some wanted to turn pirates:
but I, and the Genoese too, who was a prudent man, though an evil
one, persuaded them to run for England and get employment in the
Netherland wars, assuring them that there would be no safety in the
Spanish Main, when once our escape got wind. And the more part
being of one mind, for England we sailed, watering at the Barbadoes
because it was desolate; and so eastward toward the Canaries. In
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