| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: and he waved a hand in the direction of the fitting benches.
"All right, sir," answered Rudie. "Just a minute."
"Dad had to come on business," said Ivy, hurriedly. "And he
brought me with him. I'm--I'm on my way to school in Cleveland,
you know. Awfully glad to have seen you again. We must go. That
lady wants her shoes, I'm sure, and your employer is glaring at us.
Come, dad."
At the door she turned just in time to see Rudie removing the
shoe from the pudgy foot of the fat lady customer.
We'll take a jump of six months. That brings us into the lap
of April.
 Buttered Side Down |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: doubts of his religious faith had come another still more
extraordinary question: "Although there is a God, does he indeed
matter more in our ordinary lives than that same demonstrable
Binomial Theorem? Isn't one's duty to Phoebe plain and clear?"
Old Likeman's argument came back to him with novel and enhanced
powers. Wasn't he after all selfishly putting his own salvation
in front of his plain duty to those about him? What did it matter
if he told lies, taught a false faith, perjured and damned
himself, if after all those others were thereby saved and
comforted?
"But that is just where the whole of this state of mind is
|