| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: word catching the heroine in his arms, and after one long, tremendous look,
carrying her off to anywhere...
Reggie bowed to his vision. "Yes, I see," he said huskily.
"Do you?" said Anne. "Oh, I do hope you do. Because I feel so horrid
about it. It's so hard to explain. You know I've never--" She stopped.
Reggie looked at her. She was smiling. "Isn't it funny?" she said. "I
can say anything to you. I always have been able to from the very
beginning."
He tried to smile, to say "I'm glad." She went on. "I've never known any
one I like as much as I like you. I've never felt so happy with any one.
But I'm sure it's not what people and what books mean when they talk about
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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 House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: It lays great cities in dust, it fills the seas;
It covers the face of beauty, and tumbles walls.
Where was the woman he loved? Where was his youth?
Where was the dream that burned his brain like fire?
Even a dream grows grey at last and falls.
He opened his book once more, beside the window,
And read the printed words upon that page.
The sunlight touched his hand; his eyes moved slowly,
The quiet words enchanted time and age.
'Death is never an ending, death is a change;
Death is beautiful, for death is strange;
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