| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: . . I'd never--marry you--never live out here?"
"Yes, Carley, I knew you'd never be woman enough--American enough--to help
me reconstruct my broken life out here in the West," he replied, with a sad
and bitter smile.
That flayed her. An insupportable shame and wounded vanity and clamoring
love contended for dominance of her emotions. Love beat down all else.
"Dearest--I beg of you--don't break my heart," she implored.
"I love you, Carley," he answered, steadily, with piercing eyes on hers.
"Then come back--home--home with me."
"No. If you love me you will be my wife."
"Love you! Glenn, I worship you," she broke out, passionately. "But I could
 The Call of the Canyon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: a dozen of those rude fishing-hamlets, lodged in some sloping
hollow of the cliffs, so many of which, of late years, all along
the Norman coast, have adorned themselves with a couple of hotels
and a row of bathing-machines. He walked so far that the shadows
had begun to lengthen before he bethought himself of stopping;
the afternoon had come on and had already begun to wane.
The grassy downs still stretched before him, shaded here and there
with shallow but windless dells. He looked for the softest place
and then flung himself down on the grass; he lay there for a long time,
thinking of many things. He had determined to give himself up
to a day's happiness; it was happiness of a very harmless kind--
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