| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: Gormer world and the more dimly-lit region on which Miss Bart now
found herself entering. It was, however, only figuratively that
the illumination of Mrs. Hatch's world could be described as dim:
in actual fact, Lily found her seated in a blaze of electric
light, impartially projected from various ornamental excrescences
on a vast concavity of pink damask and gilding, from which she
rose like Venus from her shell. The analogy was justified by the
appearance of the lady, whose large-eyed prettiness had the
fixity of something impaled and shown under glass. This did not
preclude the immediate discovery that she was some years younger
than her visitor, and that under her showiness, her ease,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: is smaller, it will be less in number; and inasmuch as it is equal in size
to other things, it will be equal to them in number.
Certainly.
Once more, then, as would appear, the one will be in number both equal to
and more and less than both itself and all other things.
It will.
Does the one also partake of time? And is it and does it become older and
younger than itself and others, and again, neither younger nor older than
itself and others, by virtue of participation in time?
How do you mean?
If one is, being must be predicated of it?
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