| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale: Cleis, the beloved."
Sapphic fragment.
When the dusk was wet with dew,
Cleis, did the muses nine
Listen in a silent line
While your mother sang to you?
Did they weep or did they smile
When she crooned to still your cries,
She, a muse in human guise,
Who forsook her lyre awhile?
Did you feel her wild heart beat?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: against either John or Charley. I wondered a little that she should feel
any uncertainty about her affianced lover. She must know how much his
word was to him, and she had had his word twice, given her the second
time to put his own honor right with her on the score of the phosphates.
But perhaps Hortense's rich experiences of life had taught her that a
man's word to a woman should not be subjected to the test of another
woman's advent. On the whole, I suppose it was quite natural those
flowers should annoy her, and equally natural that Eliza, the minx,
should allow them to do so! There's a joy to the marrow in watching your
enemy harried and discomfited by his own gratuitous contrivances; you
look on serenely at a show which hasn't cost you a groat. However, poor
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