| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: sympathy he had mistaken for weakness of character; and, because
he perceived that I disliked resistance, he thought my indulgence
and compassion mere selfishness, and never discovered that the fear
of being unjust, or of unnecessarily wounding the feelings of
another, was much more painful to me, than any thing I could have
to endure myself. Perhaps it was pride which made me imagine, that
I could bear what I dreaded to inflict; and that it was often easier
to suffer, than to see the sufferings of others.
"I forgot to mention that, during this persecution, I received
a letter from my uncle, informing me, 'that he only found relief
from continual change of air; and that he intended to return when
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: and to pass beyond the furious race of white-capped billows that
poured from the great river for miles into the sea. Then they
turned and made for the group of half-submerged mountains and
scattered rocks that Nature, in some freak of fury, had thrown into
the throat of Seven Islands Bay. That was a difficult passage. The
black shores were swept by headlong tides. Tusks of granite tore
the waves. Baffled and perplexed, the wind flapped and whirled
among the cliffs. Through all this the little boat buffeted bravely
on till she reached the point of the Gran Boule. Then a strange
thing happened.
The water was lumpy; the evening was growing thick; a swirl of the
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