| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: insensibility for a gradual revival of moral health.
He told himself that he was recovering his sense of proportion,
getting to see things in their true light; and if he now thought
of his rash appeal to his wife's sympathy it was as an act of
folly from the consequences of which he had been saved by the
providence that watches over madmen. He had little leisure to
observe Alexa; but he concluded that the common-sense momentarily
denied him had counselled her uncritical acceptance of the
inevitable. If such a quality was a poor substitute for the
passionate justness that had once seemed to characterize her, he
accepted the alternative as a part of that general lowering of the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: adducti non prius Viridovicem reliquosque duces ex concilio dimittunt quam
ab iis sit concessum arma uti capiant et ad castra contendant. Qua re
concessa laeti, ut explorata victoria, sarmentis virgultisque collectis,
quibus fossas Romanorum compleant, ad castra pergunt.
Locus erat castrorum editus et paulatim ab imo acclivis circiter
passus mille. Huc magno cursu contenderunt, ut quam minimum spatii ad se
colligendos armandosque Romanis daretur, exanimatique pervenerunt.
Sabinus suos hortatus cupientibus signum dat. Impeditis hostibus propter
ea quae ferebant onera subito duabus portis eruptionem fieri iubet.
Factum est oportunitate loci, hostium inscientia ac defatigatione, virtute
militum et superiorum pugnarum exercitatione, ut ne unum quidem nostrorum
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