| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Cap'n Bill came out of the house and joined her.
"What's this?" he asked.
"Mo snow," said she. "But it isn't real snow, although
it falls from the sky. It's popcorn."
Cap'n Bill tasted it; then he sat down in the path and
began to eat. The Ork came out and pecked away with its
bill as fast as it could. They all liked popcorn and they
all were hungry this morning.
Meantime the flakes of "Mo snow" came down so fast that
the number of them almost darkened the air. The Bumpy Man
was now shoveling quite a distance down the mountain-
 The Scarecrow of Oz |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: should be wasted of the loaf of bread weighing twelve pounds which was
baked especially for her and lasted three weeks.
Summer and winter she wore a dimity kerchief fastened in the back with
a pin, a cap which concealed her hair, a red skirt, grey stockings,
and an apron with a bib like those worn by hospital nurses.
Her face was thin and her voice shrill. When she was twenty-five, she
looked forty. After she had passed fifty, nobody could tell her age;
erect and silent always, she resembled a wooden figure working
automatically.
CHAPTER II
Like every other woman, she had had an affair of the heart. Her
 A Simple Soul |