| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth
shut! If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way"--he nodded
towards the bell tent--"never got drunk or didn't know how to swear, I'd
sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after it. I could
stand a good lot of that sort of thing--squaring--if it would only come my
way."
The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had not
spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his mouth.
"I tell you what," said the keen man, "those of us up here who have got a
bit of land and are trying honestly and fairly to work, are getting pretty
sick of this humbugging fighting. If we'd had a few men like the Curries
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: eagle, completed the extraordinary change in the face. Was it the
storm of restrained passions; was it some power coming from the depths
of the soul, which enlarged the pupils in full daylight as they
sometimes in other eyes enlarge by night, darkening the azure of those
celestial orbs?
However that may be, it was impossible to look indifferently at
Veronique as she returned to her seat from the altar where she had
united herself with God,--a moment when she appeared to all the parish
in her primitive splendor. At such moments her beauty eclipsed that of
the most beautiful of women. What a charm was there for the man who
loved her, guarding jealously that veil of flesh which hid the woman's
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