| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: She has opinions of our ways,
And if we're not all mad, she says, --
If our ways are not wholly worse
Than others, for not being hers, --
There might somehow be found a few
Less insane things for us to do,
And we might have a little heed
Of what Belshazzar couldn't read.
She feels, with all our furniture,
Room yet for something more secure
Than our self-kindled aureoles
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: small for them that they cannot avoid a little crowding.
These are infallible signs. Taken in conjunction with the eruption
of tops and marbles among the small boys, and the purchase of
fishing-tackle and golf-clubs by the old boys, they certify us that
the vernal equinox has arrived, not only in the celestial regions,
but also in the heart of man.
I have been reflecting of late upon the relation of lovers to the
landscape, and questioning whether art has given it quite the same
place as that which belongs to it in nature. In fiction, for
example, and in the drama, and in music, I have some vague
misgivings that romantic love has come to hold a more prominent and
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