| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: "Where is my present that Santa said he left for me
in here?" she asked.
"Haven't seen anything in the way of a present," said
her husband, laughing, "unless he could have meant me."
The next day Gabriel Radd, the foreman of the X 0
Ranch, dropped into the post-office at Loma Alta.
"Well, the Frio Kid's got his dose of lead at last," he
remarked to the postmaster.
"That so? How'd it happen?"
"One of old Sanchez's Mexican sheep herders did it!
-- think of it! the Frio Kid killed bv a sheep herder!
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: wit's end. He then proceeds to mention some other particulars of the life
of Socrates; how they were at Potidaea together, where Socrates showed his
superior powers of enduring cold and fatigue; how on one occasion he had
stood for an entire day and night absorbed in reflection amid the wonder of
the spectators; how on another occasion he had saved Alcibiades' life; how
at the battle of Delium, after the defeat, he might be seen stalking about
like a pelican, rolling his eyes as Aristophanes had described him in the
Clouds. He is the most wonderful of human beings, and absolutely unlike
anyone but a satyr. Like the satyr in his language too; for he uses the
commonest words as the outward mask of the divinest truths.
When Alcibiades has done speaking, a dispute begins between him and Agathon
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