| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: real one in the summer-house. The longing was with
him day and night, an incessant undefinable craving,
like the sudden whim of a sick man for food or drink
once tasted and long since forgotten. He could not see
beyond the craving, or picture what it might lead to,
for he was not conscious of any wish to speak to
Madame Olenska or to hear her voice. He simply felt
that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of
earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea
enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty.
When he reached the stud-farm a glance showed him
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: maiden spinning, cat demure before a white fireplace. (Nineteen out of every
twenty houses in Floral Heights had either a hunting-print, a Madame Feit la
Toilette print, a colored photograph of a New England house, a photograph of a
Rocky Mountain, or all four.)
It was a room as superior in comfort to the "parlor" of Babbitt's boyhood as
his motor was superior to his father's buggy. Though there was nothing in the
room that was interesting, there was nothing that was offensive. It was as
neat, and as negative, as a block of artificial ice. The fireplace was
unsoftened by downy ashes or by sooty brick; the brass fire-irons were of
immaculate polish; and the grenadier andirons were like samples in a shop,
desolate, unwanted, lifeless things of commerce.
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