| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: "What did you do?" asked Desroches.
"I took pity upon her, and--ordered a little hat that I have just
invented, a quite new shape. If Mlle. Amanda succeeds with it, she
will say no more about the money, her fortune is made."
"In my opinion," put in Desroches, "the finest things that I have seen
in a duel of this kind give those who know Paris a far better picture
of the city than all the fancy portraits that they paint. Some of you
think that you know a thing or two," he continued, glancing round at
Nathan, Bixiou, La Palferine, and Lousteau, "but the king of the
ground is a certain Count, now busy ranging himself. In his time, he
was supposed to be the cleverest, adroitest, canniest, boldest,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: who would like his wife to share his view of human responsibilities.
What a singular selection--what a queer infatuation!
Bernard had no sooner committed himself to this line of
criticism than he stopped short, with the sudden consciousness
of error carried almost to the point of naivetae.
He exclaimed that Blanche Evers was exactly the sort of girl
that men of Gordon Wright's stamp always ended by falling
in love with, and that poor Gordon knew very much better what
he was about in this case than he had done in trying to solve
the deep problem of a comfortable life with Angela Vivian.
This was what your strong, solid, sensible fellows always came to;
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