| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: water? He swims faster than I could ever run! That is what he has
done. He has laughed at me for carrying a weight on my back while
he shot hither like an arrow!"
Crying thus to himself, Iktomi stepped to the water's brink.
He stooped forward with a hand on each bent knee and peeped far
into the deep water.
"There!" he exclaimed, "I see you, my friend, sitting with
your ankles wound around my little pot of fish! My friend, I am
hungry. Give me a bone!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the water-man, the muskrat. The sound
did not rise up out of the lake, for it came down from overhead.
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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 Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: not to acquaint other people with the details of his temporary
necessities. For the relief of the latter, he prayed directly to
the Lord, believing that sooner or later prayers are always
answered if one have trust enough. "When I lose such a thing as
a key," he writes, "I ask the Lord to direct me to it, and I look
for an answer to my prayer; when a person with whom I have made
an appointment does not come, according to the fixed time, and I
begin to be inconvenienced by it, I ask the Lord to be pleased to
hasten him to me, and I look for an answer; when I do not
understand a passage of the word of God, I lift up my heart to
the Lord that he would be pleased by his Holy Spirit to instruct
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