| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: "Oh my dear!" Mrs. Harry Kember's voice sounded as though she knew better
than that. But then her voice always sounded as though she knew something
better about you than you did yourself. She was a long, strange-looking
woman with narrow hands and feet. Her face, too, was long and narrow and
exhausted-looking; even her fair curled fringe looked burnt out and
withered. She was the only woman at the Bay who smoked, and she smoked
incessantly, keeping the cigarette between her lips while she talked, and
only taking it out when the ash was so long you could not understand why it
did not fall. When she was not playing bridge--she played bridge every day
of her life--she spent her time lying in the full glare of the sun. She
could stand any amount of it; she never had enough. All the same, it did
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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 Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: literal examples, leaving aside all purely abstract reasoning, which I
call the mathematics of thought. Instead of being, as you are, a
proprietor living upon your income, let us suppose that you are
painter, a musician, an artist, or a poet--"
"I am a painter," said the lunatic.
"Well, so be it. I see you take my metaphor. You are a painter; you
have a glorious future, a rich future before you. But I go still
farther--"
At these words the madman looked anxiously at Gaudissart, thinking he
meant to go away; but was reassured when he saw that he kept his seat.
"You may even be nothing at all," said Gaudissart, going on with his
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