| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: bread, drinking from streams or the willing cup of the goatherd.
At length he crossed a great bridge and set his foot within the
smiling city that has crushed or crowned more poets than all the rest
of the world. His breath came quickly as Paris sang to him in a little
undertone her vital chant of greeting--the hum of voice and foot and
wheel.
High up under the eaves of an old house in the Rue Conti, David paid
for lodging, and set himself, in a wooden chair, to his poems. The
street, once sheltering citizens of import and consequence, was now
given over to those who ever follow in the wake of decline.
The houses were tall and still possessed of a ruined dignity, but many
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: of the presumably weak heart, which to my mind imperilled the
success of our experiment, did not appear to trouble West extensively.
He hoped at last to obtain what he had never obtained before --
a rekindled spark of reason and perhaps a normal, living creature.
So on the night of July 18, 1910, Herbert West and I stood in
the cellar laboratory and gazed at a white, silent figure beneath
the dazzling arc-light. The embalming compound had worked uncannily
well, for as I stared fascinatedly at the sturdy frame which had
lain two weeks without stiffening, I was moved to seek West’s
assurance that the thing was really dead. This assurance he gave
readily enough; reminding me that the reanimating solution was
 Herbert West: Reanimator |