| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: of his companions. But they represented his last means of access
to the world, a kind of subterranean channel on which he could
set his "statements" afloat, like paper boats which the
mysterious current might sweep out into the open seas of life.
One day, however, his attention was arrested by a familiar
contour, a pair of bright prominent eyes, and a chin
insufficiently shaved. He sprang up and stood in the path of
Peter McCarren.
The journalist looked at him doubtfully, then held out his hand
with a startled deprecating, "WHY--?"
"You didn't know me? I'm so changed?" Granice faltered, feeling
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: But let us return to our sheep--which means the sea-lions of the
Cliff House. They are the great show of San Francisco. You take
a train which pulls up the middle of the street (it killed two
people the day before yesterday, being un-braked and driven
absolutely regardless of consequences), and you pull up somewhere
at the back of the city on the Pacific beach. Originally the
cliffs and their approaches must have been pretty, but they have
been so carefully defiled with advertisements that they are now
one big blistered abomination. A hundred yards from the shore
stood a big rock covered with the carcasses of the sleek
sea-beasts, who roared and rolled and walloped in the spouting
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