| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: making antic faces. He responded, rushing against the
bars and roaring back at me his impotent wrath. Ah, he
knew me, too, and the sounds I made were the sounds of
old time and intelligible to him.
My parents were frightened. "The child is ill," said
my mother. "He is hysterical," said my father. I never
told them, and they never knew. Already had I
developed reticence concerning this quality of mine,
this semi-disassociation of personality as I think I am
justified in calling it.
I saw the snake-charmer, and no more of the circus did
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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 Talisman by Walter Scott: Montserrat. It may be thought ill to beseem a military monk such
as I to raise his voice where so many noble princes remain
silent; but it concerns our whole host, and not least this noble
King of England, that he should hear from some one to his face
those charges which there are enow to bring against him in his
absence. We laud and honour the courage and high achievements of
the King of England; but we feel aggrieved that he should on all
occasions seize and maintain a precedence and superiority over
us, which it becomes not independent princes to submit to. Much
we might yield of our free will to his bravery, his zeal, his
wealth, and his power; but he who snatches all as matter of
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