| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: birds, a great shadow fell on him, and in the water he saw a reflection.
He looked up to the sky; but the thing was gone. Then a burning desire
came over him to see once again that reflection in the water, and all day
he watched and waited; but night came and it had not returned. Then he
went home with his empty bag, moody and silent. His comrades came
questioning about him to know the reason, but he answered them nothing; he
sat alone and brooded. Then his friend came to him, and to him he spoke.
"I have seen today," he said, "that which I never saw before--a vast white
bird, with silver wings outstretched, sailing in the everlasting blue. And
now it is as though a great fire burnt within my breast. It was but a
sheen, a shimmer, a reflection in the water; but now I desire nothing more
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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 Touchstone by Edith Wharton: they were the last words he meant to utter!--"Look here, old man,
before you go down to Newport you must come out and spend a few
days with us--mustn't he, Alexa?"
VIII
Glennard had, perhaps unconsciously, counted on the continuance of
this easier mood. He had always taken pride in a certain
robustness of fibre that enabled him to harden himself against the
inevitable, to convert his failures into the building materials of
success. Though it did not even now occur to him that what he
called the inevitable had hitherto been the alternative he
happened to prefer, he was yet obscurely aware that his present
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