| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously
abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends
at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.
It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me
tell of the rooms in which it was held. These were seven--an
imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long
and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to
the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is
scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different, as might have
been expected from the duke's love of the bizarre. The
apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: clarity the whole herd and the outriders and the mesas far away.
As the afternoon waned, long shafts of sun slanted through this
dust. It played on men and beasts magically, expanding them to
the dimensions of strange genii, appearing and effacing
themselves in the billows of vapour from some enchanted bottle.
We on the outside found our sinecure of hot noon-tide filched
from us by the cooler hours. The cattle, wearied of standing,
and perhaps somewhat hungry and thirsty, grew more and more
impatient. We rode continually back and forth, turning the slow
movement in on itself. Occasionally some particularly
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