| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: child, and know how to take care of yourself. A young
girl--especially if she be a very pretty one--can never be too
chary of her lips."
"Indeed, sir," said Phoebe, trying to laugh the matter off, "I did
not mean to be unkind."
Nevertheless, whether or no it were entirely owing to the
inauspicious commencement of their acquaintance, she still acted
under a certain reserve, which was by no means customary to her
frank and genial nature. The fantasy would not quit her, that the
original Puritan, of whom she had heard so many sombre traditions,
--the progenitor of the whole race of New England Pyncheons, the
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: latter's part to observe some detail of one of their noted
conditions, and had so lucidly argued his case that, besides ever
so prettily flushing, at the time, for sympathy in his triumph, she
had afterwards said to him (though to a slightly greater effect of
irony) that he had clearly for too many years neglected a real
gift. If he had but stayed at home he would have anticipated the
inventor of the sky-scraper. If he had but stayed at home he would
have discovered his genius in time really to start some new variety
of awful architectural hare and run it till it burrowed in a gold
mine. He was to remember these words, while the weeks elapsed, for
the small silver ring they had sounded over the queerest and
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