The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: the office, hoping to come out into heaven any moment, but it was a
mistake. That hall was built on the general heavenly plan - it
naturally couldn't be small. At last I got so tired I couldn't go
any farther; so I sat down to rest, and begun to tackle the
queerest sort of strangers and ask for information, but I didn't
get any; they couldn't understand my language, and I could not
understand theirs. I got dreadfully lonesome. I was so down-
hearted and homesick I wished a hundred times I never had died. I
turned back, of course. About noon next day, I got back at last
and was on hand at the booking-office once more. Says I to the
head clerk -
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: It is a curious study, this noonday crowd that gathers to sate
its music hunger on the scraps vouchsafed it by Bernie
Gottschalk's Music House. Loose-lipped, slope-shouldered young
men with bad complexions and slender hands. Girls whose clothes
are an unconscious satire on present-day fashions. On their
faces, as they listen to the music, is a look of peace and
dreaming. They stand about, smiling a wistful half smile. The
music seems to satisfy a something within them. Faces dull, eyes
lusterless, they listen in a sort of trance.
Terry played on. She played as Terry Sheehan used to play. She
played as no music hack at Bernie Gottschalk's had ever played
 One Basket |