| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey: burros, blankets spread under the cottonwoods. When the afternoon waned
and the shade from the western wall crept into the oasis, August Naab
came from his cabin clad in buckskins, with a large blue Colt swinging
handle outward from his left hip. He ordered his sons to replenish the
fire which had been built in the circle, and when the fierce-eyed Indians
gathered round the blaze he called to his women to bring meat and drink.
Hare's unnatural calmness had prevailed until he saw Naab stride out to
front the waiting Indians. Then a ripple of cold passed over him. He
leaned against a tree in the shadow and watched the gray-faced giant
stalking to and fro before his Indian friends. A long while he strode in
the circle of light to pause at length before the chieftains and to break
The Heritage of the Desert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: Nevertheless, there is a certain frame of mind to which a
cemetery is, if not an antidote, at least an alleviation. If
you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else. It was in
obedience to this wise regulation that the other morning
found me lighting my pipe at the entrance to Old Greyfriars',
thoroughly sick of the town, the country, and myself.
Two of the men were talking at the gate, one of them carrying
a spade in hands still crusted with the soil of graves.
Their very aspect was delightful to me; and I crept nearer to
them, thinking to pick up some snatch of sexton gossip, some
'talk fit for a charnel,' (2) something, in fine, worthy of
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