| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to
the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is
scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different, as might have
been expected from the duke's love of the bizarre. The
apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced
but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at
every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To
the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow
Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the
windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose
colour varied in accordance with the prevailing hue 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 A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: own language; in which, though accounted canonical, the books of the
Maccabees are omitted. The instruments of music made use of in
their rites of worship are little drums, which they hang about their
necks, and beat with both their hands; these are carried even by
their chief men, and by the gravest of their ecclesiastics. They
have sticks likewise, with which they strike the ground,
accompanying the blow with a motion of their whole bodies. They
begin their concert by stamping their feet on the ground, and
playing gently on their instruments; but when they have heated
themselves by degrees, they leave off drumming, and fall to leaping,
dancing, and clapping their hands, at the same time straining their
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