The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: had freshened itself in their eyes after that hour among the pears and
the cabbages. Especially, Lily thought, Mrs Ramsay would glance at
Prue. She sat in the middle between brothers and sisters, always
occupied, it seemed, seeing that nothing went wrong so that she
scarcely spoke herself. How Prue must have blamed herself for that
earwig in the milk How white she had gone when Mr Ramsay threw his
plate through the window! How she drooped under those long silences
between them! Anyhow, her mother now would seem to be making it up to
her; assuring her that everything was well; promising her that one of
these days that same happiness would be hers. She had enjoyed it for
less than a year, however.
 To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: quiet men sinking a shaft close by the stream, and he had heard
their whip-saw going as they made lumber for the sluice boxes.
He did not wait for an invitation, but he was present the first
day they sluiced. And at the end of five hours' shovelling for
one man, he saw them take out thirteen ounces and a half of gold.
It was coarse gold, running from pinheads to a twelve-dollar
nugget, and it had come from off bed-rock. The first fall snow
was flying that day, and the Arctic winter was closing down; but
Daylight had no eyes for the bleak-gray sadness of the dying,
short-lived summer. He saw his vision coming true, and on the
big flat was upreared anew his golden city of the snows. Gold
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