| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: its circuit. It would be entirely safe, even if it were built of
lucifer matches.
If your seat is near the center of a row and you enter late
you must work your way along a rank of about twenty-five ladies
and gentlemen to get to it. Yet this causes no trouble, for
everybody stands up until all the seats are full, and the filling
is accomplished in a very few minutes. Then all sit down, and
you have a solid mass of fifteen hundred heads, making a steep
cellar-door slant from the rear of the house down to the stage.
All the lights were turned low, so low that the congregation
sat in a deep and solemn gloom. The funereal rustling of dresses
 What is Man? |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: the tune of Sir Roger de Coverley. Once a year, also, the
neighbors would gather together, and go on a gypsy party to
Epping Forest. It would have done any man's heart good to
see the merriment that took place here as we banqueted on the
grass under the trees. How we made the woods ring with
bursts of laughter at the songs of little Wagstaff and the merry
undertaker! After dinner, too, the young folks would play at
blind-man's-buff and hide-and-seek; and it was amusing to see
them tangled among the briers, and to hear a fine romping girl
now and then squeak from among the bushes. The elder folks
would gather round the cheesemonger and the apothecary to
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