| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: revealed truth. These new converts forget that it is too late.
Had they been really touched by grace, a like operation could not
have the same influence on minds less concerned with the
preoccupations which beset these recent adherents to religion.
The masses repudiate to-day the gods which their admonishers
repudiated yesterday and helped to destroy. There is no power,
Divine or human, that can oblige a stream to flow back to its
source.
There has been no bankruptcy of science, and science has had no
share in the present intellectual anarchy, nor in the making of
the new power which is springing up in the midst of this anarchy.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: I walked home with Antonia. We were so excited that we dreaded to go to bed.
We lingered a long while at the Harlings' gate, whispering in the cold
until the restlessness was slowly chilled out of us.
VIII
THE HARLING CHILDREN and I were never happier, never felt more contented
and secure, than in the weeks of spring which broke that long winter.
We were out all day in the thin sunshine, helping Mrs. Harling and Tony
break the ground and plant the garden, dig around the orchard trees,
tie up vines and clip the hedges. Every morning, before I was up, I could
hear Tony singing in the garden rows. After the apple and cherry trees broke
into bloom, we ran about under them, hunting for the new nests the birds were
 My Antonia |