| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: pass the night, the last night, in weeping on her grave. But I
should be seen and driven out. How was I to manage? I was
cunning, and got up and began to roam about in that city of the
dead. I walked and walked. How small this city is, in comparison
with the other, the city in which we live. And yet, how much more
numerous the dead are than the living. We want high houses, wide
streets, and much room for the four generations who see the
daylight at the same time, drink water from the spring, and wine
from the vines, and eat bread from the plains.
"And for all the generations of the dead, for all that ladder of
humanity that has descended down to us, there is scarcely
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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 Mountains by Stewart Edward White: the outer blackness. We found it next day caught
in the bushes several hundred yards distant. Our
voices as we shouted were snatched from our lips
and hurled lavishly into space. The very breath of
our bodies seemed driven back, so that as we faced
the elements, we breathed in gasps, with difficulty.
Then we dropped down into our blankets.
At once the prostrate tree-trunk gave us its
protection. We lay in a little back-wash of the racing
winds, still as a night in June. Over us roared the
battle. We felt like sharpshooters in the trenches;
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