| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Here her silence was her invincible weapon. Here
she was free.
The soft summer night enveloped her. The air
was sweet with flowers and the grass which lay still
unraked in her father's yard. A momentary feeling
of impatience seized her; then she dismissed it, and
peace came. What had she to do with that hay?
Her father would be obliged to buy hay if it were not
raked over and dried, but what of that? She had
nothing to do with it.
She heard voices and soft laughter. A dark
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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 Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: comparatively, plays over the surface of it. The order, the form,
the texture of my books will perhaps some day constitute for the
initiated a complete representation of it. So it's naturally the
thing for the critic to look for. It strikes me," my visitor
added, smiling, "even as the thing for the critic to find."
This seemed a responsibility indeed. "You call it a little trick?"
"That's only my little modesty. It's really an exquisite scheme."
"And you hold that you've carried the scheme out?"
"The way I've carried it out is the thing in life I think a bit
well of myself for."
I had a pause. "Don't you think you ought - just a trifle - to
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