| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: shore. It would be ghastly cold to drop into the water to-night.
Or--throat cut--in the bathroom--
Babbitt flung into Paul's bathroom. It was empty. He smiled, feebly.
He pulled at his choking collar, looked at his watch, opened the window to
stare down at the street, looked at his watch, tried to read the evening paper
lying on the glass-topped bureau, looked again at his watch. Three minutes had
gone by since he had first looked at it.
And he waited for three hours.
He was sitting fixed, chilled, when the doorknob turned. Paul came in
glowering.
"Hello," Paul said. "Been waiting?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: In Golgotha and Khartoum,
And the brutes, the work of thine hands,
Fill with injustice lands
And stain with blood the sea:
If still in my veins the glee
Of the black night and the sun
And the lost battle, run:
If, an adept,
The iniquitous lists I still accept
With joy, and joy to endure and be withstood,
And still to battle and perish for a dream of good:
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