| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The noise of the falling candlestick sounded to the
taut nerved house-breaker as might the explosion of a
stick of dynamite during prayer in a meeting house.
That all Oakdale had heard it seemed quite possible,
while that those below stairs were already turning ques-
tioning ears, and probably inquisitive footsteps, upward
was almost a foregone conclusion.
Adjoining Miss Prim's boudoir was her bath and be-
fore the door leading from the one to the other was a
cretonne covered screen behind which the burglar now
concealed himself the while he listened in rigid appre-
The Oakdale Affair |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: lowered voice: "I don't know," she suddenly confessed; "but,
somehow, if THEY'RE not happy I feel as if we shouldn't
be."
"Oh, well--" Darrow acquiesced, in the tone of the man who
perforce yields to so lovely an unreasonableness. Escape
was, after all, impossible, and he could only resign himself
to being led to Madame de Chantelle's door.
Within, among the bric-a-brac and furbelows, he found Miss
Painter seated in a redundant purple armchair with the
incongruous air of a horseman bestriding a heavy mount.
Madame de Chantelle sat opposite, still a little wan and
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