| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: smoked fiercely and drank continually. All at once he
straightened up as if listening.
"What's that?" he called, suddenly.
Duane's strained ears were pervaded by a slight rustling sound.
"Must be a rat," replied Longstreth.
The rustle became a rattle.
"Sounds like a rattlesnake to me," said Lawson.
Longstreth got up from the table and peered round the room.
Just at that instant Duane felt an almost inappreciable
movement of the adobe wall which supported him. He could
scarcely credit his senses. But the rattle inside Longstreth's
The Lone Star Ranger |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: would write a satire on sedition." Taking this hint, Dryden
speedily set himself to work, and brought a poem on such a
subject to his royal master, who rewarded him with a hundred
broad pieces.
Amongst Dryden's friends was the excellent and ingenious Abraham
Cowley, whose youth had given the promise of distinction his
manhood fulfilled. It is related that when quite a lad, he found
in the window recess of his mother's apartment a copy of
Spencer's "Faerie Queene." Opening the book, he read it with
delight, and his receptive mind reflecting the poet's fire, he
resolved likewise to exercise the art of poesy. In 1628, when at
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