| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: "Out?"
"Sure. Yer don't think I'm goin' ter head my bill with a 'dead
one,' do you?"
"I am not a 'dead one,' " she answered, excitedly. "I'm the best
rider you've had since mother died. You've said so yourself."
'That was afore yer got in with them church cranks. You talk
about yer mother! Why, she'd be ashamed ter own yer."
"She wouldn't," cried Polly. Her eyes were flashing, her face
was scarlet. The pride of hundreds of years of ancestry was
quivering with indignation. "I can ride as well as I EVER could,
and I'll do it, too. I'll do it to-morrow."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: draw together into a separate individuality an image not quite
bodiless, that replaces her in her absence, as the holy
Theocrite was replaced by the angel. If there are ghosts of the
dead, why not ghosts of the living also?" This lover's fancy so
pleased him that he brought to bear upon it the whole force of
his imagination, and it grew stronger day by day. To him,
thenceforth, the house was haunted, and all its floating traces
of herself visible or invisible,--from the ribbon that he saw
entangled in the window-blind to every intangible and fancied
atom she had imparted to the atmosphere,--came at last to
organize themselves into one phantom shape for him and looked
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