| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: have such spirits under so many distresses.
CHARLES. Why, there's the point! my distresses are so many, that
I can't affort to part with my spirits; but I shall be rich and
splenetic, all in good time. However, I suppose you are surprised
that I am not more sorrowful at parting with so many near relations;
to be sure, 'tis very affecting; but you see they never move a muscle,
so why should I?
ROWLEY. There's no making you serious a moment.
CHARLES. Yes, faith, I am so now. Here, my honest Rowley, here,
get me this changed directly, and take a hundred pounds of it
immediately to old Stanley.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: his temples pulsed! Why, this was fever! Such pains in the back
and head!
Still his skin was dry,--dry as parchment,--burning. He rose up;
and a bursting weight of pain at the base of the skull made him
reel like a drunken man. He staggered to the little mirror
nailed upon the wall, and looked. How his eyes glowed;---and
there was blood in his mouth! He felt his pulse spasmodic,
terribly rapid. Could it possibly---? ... No: this must be
some pernicious malarial fever! The Creole does not easily fall
a prey to the great tropical malady,---unless after a long
absence in other climates. True! he had been four years in the
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