| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: having told you. I hated him because he knew about the letters."
He caught the spreading horror of her eyes, and for an instant he
had to grapple with the new temptation they lit up. Then he said,
with an effort--"Don't blame him--he's impeccable. He helped me
to get them published; but I lied to him too; I pretended they
were written to another man . . . a man who was dead. . . ."
She raised her arms in a gesture that seemed to ward off his
blows.
"You DO despise me!" he insisted.
"Ah, that poor woman--that poor woman--" he heard her murmur.
"I spare no one, you see!" he triumphed over her. She kept her
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: rest.
"Tired already, Mr. Smilash?" she said mockingly.
He looked up deliberately, took off one of his washleather
gloves, fanned himself with it, displaying a white and fine hand,
and at last replied, in the tone and with the accent of a
gentleman:
"Very."
Agatha recoiled. He fanned himself without the least concern.
"You--you are not a laborer," she said at last.
"Obviously not."
"I thought not."
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