| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: to
speak to him, but they looked at him often and spoke to one
another
as they looked; and now and then one of them would smile and
beckon him a friendly greeting, so that he felt they would like
him
to be with them.
There was quite an interval between the groups; and he followed
each of them with his eyes after it had passed, blanching the
long ribbon of the road for a little transient space, rising and
receding
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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 Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: before Religion, and the heavy weight of the stone had sealed the
mouth of the grave in which he had laid the one feeling of
remorse that sometimes flitted through his soul in moments of
physical weariness.
He had drawn up a list of the wealth heaped up by the old
merchant in the East, and he became a miser: had he not to
provide for a second lifetime? His views of life were the more
profound and penetrating; he grasped its significance, as a
whole, the better, because he saw it across a grave. All men, all
things, he analyzed once and for all; he summed up the Past,
represented by its records; the Present in the law, its
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