| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: make him ask why the mass of men were either not possessed of his
security or discontented with it. The impulses that took his
school friends out upon all sorts of odd feats and adventures
struck him as needless. As he grew up he turned with an equal
distrust from passion or ambition. His friends went out after
love, after adventure, after power, after knowledge, after this
or that desire, and became men. But he noted merely that they
became fleshly, that effort strained them, that they were
sometimes angry or violent or heated. He could not but feel that
theirs were vulgar experiences, and he sought some finer exercise
for his exceptional quality. He pursued art or philosophy or
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: room filled with the fine, dry heat of burning wood, they all, with
the exception of Elizabeth, who was outside the range of the fire,
felt less and less anxious about the effect they were making, and more
and more inclined for sleep. At this moment a vehement scratching was
heard on the door.
"Piper!--oh, damn!--I shall have to get up," murmured Christopher.
"It's not Piper, it's Pitch," Edward grunted.
"All the same, I shall have to get up," Christopher grumbled. He let
in the dog, and stood for a moment by the door, which opened into the
garden, to revive himself with a draught of the black, starlit air.
"Do come in and shut the door!" Mary cried, half turning in her chair.
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