| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: me an' called me, while they was takin' of the chiny down, an'
showed me there was one o' the cups broke an' the pieces wropped in
paper and pushed way back here, corner o' the shelf. They didn't
want me to go an' think they done it. Poor dear! I had to put
right out o' the house when I see that. I knowed in one minute how
'twas. We'd got so used to sayin' 'twas all there just's I fetched
it home, an' so when she broke that cup somehow or 'nother she
couldn't frame no words to come an' tell me. She couldn't think
'twould vex me, 'twas her own hurt pride. I guess there wa'n't no
other secret ever lay between us."
The French cups with their gay sprigs of pink and blue, the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: obscure, although the village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled
the cloud of mystery that hung about it. Those simple Brittany folk
were not so simple as to be deceived by a pretended relationship
which did not even possess the virtue of originality. When a
nobleman, for no apparent reason, announces himself the godfather of
an infant fetched no man knew whence, and thereafter cares for the
lad's rearing and education, the most unsophisticated of country
folk perfectly understand the situation. And so the good people of
Gavrillac permitted themselves no illusions on the score of the real
relationship between Andre-Louis Moreau - as the lad had been named
- and Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the
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