| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: Wall Street and at Albany, consultations and committee meetings
in
the brownstone mansion.
For a share in all this business and its adjuncts John Weightman
had his son in training in one of the famous law firms of the
city;
for he held that banking itself is a simple affair, the only real
difficulties of finance are on its legal side. Meantime he
wished
the young man to meet and know the men with whom he would have to
deal
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: vats, plunging her arms, elbow deep, into the white curds; coming
and going in that atmosphere of freshness, cleanliness, and
sunlight, gay, singing, supremely happy just because the sun
shone. She remembered her long walks toward the Mission late in
the afternoons, her excursions for cresses underneath the Long
Trestle, the crowing of the cocks, the distant whistle of the
passing trains, the faint sounding of the Angelus. She recalled
with infinite longing the solitary expanse of the ranches, the
level reaches between the horizons, full of light and silence;
the heat at noon, the cloudless iridescence of the sunrise and
sunset. She had been so happy in that life! Now, all those days
|
