| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: "Oh, I arranged that with Flora." His answers rang out with a readiness!
"She was to get up and look out."
"Which is what she did do." It was I who fell into the trap!
"So she disturbed you, and, to see what she was looking at,
you also looked--you saw."
"While you," I concurred, "caught your death in the night air!"
He literally bloomed so from this exploit that he could afford radiantly
to assent. "How otherwise should I have been bad enough?" he asked.
Then, after another embrace, the incident and our interview closed
on my recognition of all the reserves of goodness that, for his joke,
he had been able to draw upon.
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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 Touchstone by Edith Wharton: smoothed them out his own countenance seemed to undergo the same
process. He ran his eye down the list of stocks and Flamel's
importunate personality receded behind the rows of figures pushing
forward into notice like so many bearers of good news. Glennard's
investments were flowering like his garden: the dryest shares
blossomed into dividends, and a golden harvest awaited his sickle.
He glanced at his wife with the tranquil air of the man who
digests good luck as naturally as the dry ground absorbs a shower.
"Things are looking uncommonly well. I believe we shall be able
to go to town for two or three months next winter if we can find
something cheap."
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