| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: But all in vain are these mean obsequies;
And to survey his dead and earthy image,
What were it but to make my sorrow greater?
[Re-enter WARWICK and others, bearing GLOSTER's
body on a bed.]
WARWICK.
Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.
KING.
That is to see how deep my grave is made;
For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,
For seeing him I see my life in death.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: lived a long time with people who never spoke to them or looked
at them: as though the silence of the place had gradually
benumbed their busy inquisitive natures. And this strange
passivity, this almost human lassitude, seemed to me sadder than
the misery of starved and beaten animals. I should have liked to
rouse them for a minute, to coax them into a game or a scamper;
but the longer I looked into their fixed and weary eyes the more
preposterous the idea became. With the windows of that house
looking down on us, how could I have imagined such a thing? The
dogs knew better: THEY knew what the house would tolerate and
what it would not. I even fancied that they knew what was
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