| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: roof, felt the unusual vibration, and looked out with their wicked bright
eyes, to see what was going on.
Tant Sannie sighed, the Hottentot maid sighed, the Kaffer girl who looked
in at the door put her hand over her mouth and said "Mow-wah!"
"You must trust in the Lord," said Tant Sannie. "He can give you more than
you have lost."
"I do, I do!" he cried; "but oh, I have no wife! I have no wife!"
Tant Sannie was much affected, and came and stood near the bed.
"Ask him if he won't have a little pap--nice, fine, flour pap. There is
some boiling on the kitchen fire."
The German made the proposal, but the widower waved his hand.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: filigree work of carved stone. A dome of glass at the end of the choir
sparkled as if it had been built of precious stones set cunningly. In
contrast to the roof with its alternating spaces of whiteness and
color, the two aisles lay to right and left in shadow so deep that the
faint gray outlines of their hundred shafts were scarcely visible in
the gloom. I gazed at the marvelous arcades, the scroll-work, the
garlands, the curving lines, and arabesques interwoven and interlaced,
and strangely lighted, until by sheer dint of gazing my perceptions
became confused, and I stood upon the borderland between illusion and
reality, taken in the snare set for the eyes, and almost light-headed
by reason of the multitudinous changes of the shapes about me.
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