The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: (Published by Request
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Composed on the death of Samuel and Catharine Belknap's children
by M. A. Glaze
Friends and neighbors all draw near,
And listen to what I have to say;
And never leave your children dear
When they are small, and go away.
But always think of that sad fate,
That happened in year of '63;
Four children with a house did burn,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: slats he saw it was a bright, moonlit night. Scrambling out, he saw
his car with three others abandoned on a little siding in a wild and
lonesome country. A cattle pen and chute stood on one side of the
track. The railroad bisected a vast, dim ocean of prairie, in the
midst of which Chicken, with his futile rolling stock, was as
completely stranded as was Robinson with his land-locked boat.
A white post stood near the rails. Going up to it, Chicken read the
letters at the top, S. A. 90. Laredo was nearly as far to the south.
He was almost a hundred miles from any town. Coyotes began to yelp in
the mysterious sea around him. Chicken felt lonesome. He had lived in
Boston without an education, in Chicago without nerve, in Philadelphia
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