| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: "Oh, I understand. There may be things--worth giving up all
other things for."
"There are!" cried Nick with beaming emphasis.
He was conscious that Miss Hicks's eyes demanded of him even
more than this sweeping affirmation.
"But your novel may fail," she said with her odd harshness.
"It may--it probably will," he agreed. "But if one stopped to
consider such possibilities--"
"Don't you have to, with a wife?"
"Oh, my dear Coral--how old are you? Not twenty?" he
questioned, laying a brotherly hand on hers.
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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 Riverman by Stewart Edward White: low-voiced comments or directions of the workers, the crackle of the
fire ashore were thrown by contrast into an undue importance. Men
in blankets, awaiting their turn, slept close to the blaze.
Suddenly the vast silence of before dawn was broken by a loud and
exultant yell from one of the axemen. At once the two scrambled to
the top of the dam. The blanketed figures about the fire sprang to
life. A brief instant later the snapping of wood fibres began like
the rapid explosions of infantry fire; a crash and bang of timbers
smote the air; and then the river, exultant, roaring with joy,
rushed from its pent quietude into the new passage opened for it.
At the same moment, as though at the signal, a single bird,
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