| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: his approach, turn womanly, pleading and almost humble. That
was Coral ....
Suddenly she said, without turning toward him: "You've had no
letters since you've been on board."
He looked at her, surprised. "No--thank the Lord!" he laughed.
"And you haven't written one either," she continued in her hard
statistical tone.
"No," he again agreed, with the same laugh.
"That means that you really are free--"
"Free?"
He saw the cheek nearest him redden. "Really off on a holiday,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: written law of wages: it says they've got to advance,
little by little, straight through the centuries. And
notice how it works. We know what wages are now,
here and there and yonder; we strike an average, and say
that's the wages of to-day. We know what the wages
were a hundred years ago, and what they were two
hundred years ago; that's as far back as we can get,
but it suffices to give us the law of progress, the
measure and rate of the periodical augmentation; and
so, without a document to help us, we can come pretty
close to determining what the wages were three and
 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |