| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: Rispetto
Was that his step that sounded on the stair?
Was that his knock I heard upon the door?
I grow so tired I almost cease to care,
And yet I would that he might come once more.
It was the wind I heard, that mocks at me,
The bitter wind that is more cruel than he;
It was the wind that knocked upon the door,
But he will never knock nor enter more.
Less than the Cloud to the Wind
Less than the cloud to the wind,
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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 Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: asked him what was his brother's part in our distress, "What!" he
cried, "he sits in my place, he bears my name, he courts my wife;
and I am here alone with a damned Irishman in this tooth-chattering
desert! Oh, I have been a common gull!" he cried.
The explosion was in all ways so foreign to my friend's nature that
I was daunted out of all my just susceptibility. Sure, an
offensive expression, however vivacious, appears a wonderfully
small affair in circumstances so extreme! But here there is a
strange thing to be noted. He had only once before referred to the
lady with whom he was contracted. That was when we came in view of
the town of New York, when he had told me, if all had their rights,
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