The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead.
Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so."
Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room;
now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton.
"What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--
an honest man, a galant homme--in saying so base a thing as that?"
"Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly.
"I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so.
Of course, I don't mean it literally."
The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked.
This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling 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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: "private enterprise" to exploit the occasion upon rather more
costly and less productive lines, the general distrust felt by
ignorant and unimaginative people of a new way of doing things.
The process after all may not get done in the obviously wise way.
This will not mean that Europe will buy American cars. It will
be quite unable to buy American cars. It will be unable to make
anything that America will not be able to make more cheaply for
itself. But it will mean that Europe will go on without cheap
cars, that is to say it will go on a more sluggishly and clumsily
and wastefully at a lower economic level. Hampered transport
means hampered production of other things, and in increasing
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