| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: dogged cowboy a realization that golf was beyond him.
Stillwell bawled: "Oh, haw, haw, haw! Nels, you're--too old--
eyes no good!"
Nels slammed down the club, and when he straightened up with the
red leaving his face, then the real pride and fire of the man
showed. Deliberately he stepped off ten paces and turned toward
the little mound upon which rested the ball. His arm shot down,
elbow crooked, hand like a claw.
"Aw, Nels, this is fun!" yelled Stillwell.
But swift as a gleam of light Nels flashed his gun, and the
report came with the action. Chips flew from the golf-ball as it
 The Light of Western Stars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: beginning of the next tercet, establishing a kind of overlap,
reflected in the overlapping motif of the Danteum design. Dante's
realms are further subdivided: the Inferno is composed of nine
levels, the vestibule makes a tenth. Purgatory has seven
terraces, plus two ledges in an ante-purgatory; adding these to
the Earthly Paradise yields ten zones. Paradise is composed of
nine heavens; Empyrean makes the tenth. In the Inferno, sinners
are organized by three vices--Incontinence, Violence, and
Fraud--and further subdivided by the seven deadly sins. In
Purgatory, penance is ordered on the basis of three types of
natural love. Paradise is organized on the basis of three types
 The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |