The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: wasn't, so far as I could discover, a line of his writing in the
house.
CHAPTER IV.
RETURNING to town I feverishly collected them all; I picked out
each in its order and held it up to the light. This gave me a
maddening month, in the course of which several things took place.
One of these, the last, I may as well immediately mention, was that
I acted on Vereker's advice: I renounced my ridiculous attempt. I
could really make nothing of the business; it proved a dead loss.
After all I had always, as he had himself noted, liked him; and
what now occurred was simply that my new intelligence and vain
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: Tomsk; and secondly, the preparations for the defense were
made far more rapidly than he had supposed possible; these
two things had balked his plans. He was now under the
necessity of instituting a regular siege of the town.
However, by his suggestion, the Emir twice attempted
the capture of the place, at the cost of a large sacrifice of
men. He threw soldiers on the earth-works which pre-
sented any weak point; but these two assaults were repulsed
with the greatest courage. The Grand Duke and his officers
did not spare themselves on this occasion. They appeared
in person; they led the civil population to the ramparts.
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