| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Of evenings, and the ghosts would all be there.
I doubt if he goes after them; I doubt
If many of them ever come to him.
His memories are like lamps, and they go out;
Or if they burn, they flicker and are dim.
A light of other gleams he has to-day
And adulations of applauding hosts;
A famous danger, but a safer way
Than growing old alone among the ghosts.
But we may still be glad that we were wrong:
He fooled us, and we'd shrivel to deny it;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Eudora paced down the sidewalk with a magnificent, stately gait.
There was something rather magnificent in her whole appearance.
Her skirts of old, but rich, black fabric swept about her long,
advancing limbs; she held her black-bonneted head high, as if
crowned. She pushed the cumbersome baby-carriage with no
apparent effort. An ancient India shawl was draped about her
sloping shoulders.
Eudora, as she passed the Glynn house, turned her face slightly,
so that its pure oval was evident. She was now a beauty in late
middle life. Her hair, of an indeterminate shade, swept in soft
shadows over her ears; her features were regular; her expression
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