| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: depths of their minds as they went to their beds on a starry
night like this, with mystery in silence and shadow, with time
passing surely, and the dark future and its secret approaching
every hour--what, then, but hell?
The hell in Duane's mind was not fear of man or fear of death.
He would have been glad to lay down the burden of life,
providing death came naturally. Many times he had prayed for
it. But that overdeveloped, superhuman spirit of defense in him
precluded suicide or the inviting of an enemy's bullet.
Sometimes he had a vague, scarcely analyzed idea that this
spirit was what had made the Southwest habitable for the white
The Lone Star Ranger |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: And do they speak great things of the great, rejoined Euthydemus, and warm
things of the warm?
To be sure they do, said Ctesippus; and they speak coldly of the insipid
and cold dialectician.
You are abusive, Ctesippus, said Dionysodorus, you are abusive!
Indeed, I am not, Dionysodorus, he replied; for I love you and am giving
you friendly advice, and, if I could, would persuade you not like a boor to
say in my presence that I desire my beloved, whom I value above all men, to
perish.
I saw that they were getting exasperated with one another, so I made a joke
with him and said: O Ctesippus, I think that we must allow the strangers
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