| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: places the birch and maple will not grow, or at least they occur
but sparsely. The higher slopes and sharp ridges of the mountains
are always covered with soft-wood timber. Spruce and hemlock and
balsam strike their roots among the rocks, and find a hidden
nourishment. They stand close together; thickets of small trees
spring up among the large ones; from year to year the great trunks
are falling one across another, and the undergrowth is thickening
around them, until a spruce forest seems to be almost impassable.
The constant rain of needles and the crumbling of the fallen trees
form a rich, brown mould, into which the foot sinks noiselessly.
Wonderful beds of moss, many feet in thickness, and softer than
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: The young man flushed, and his dull eyes began to sparkle.
"Because, madam," said he, in accelerando tones, "I pay the
chauffeur's wages and I own the automobile--and also this onion--this
onion, madam."
He flourished the onion within an inch of Hetty's nose. The shop-lady
did not retreat a hair's-breadth.
"Then why do you eat onions," she said, with biting contempt, "and
nothing else?"
"I never said I did," retorted the young man, heatedly. "I said I had
nothing else to eat where I live. I am not a delicatessen store-
keeper."
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