| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: XIII
FARRABESCHE
Veronique hastened to mount her horse and rejoin the servants, who
were beginning to be uneasy about her; for the strange unhealthiness
of the Roche-Vive was well known throughout the neighborhood. Colorat
begged his mistress to go down into the little valley which led to the
plain. It would be dangerous, he said, to return by the hills, or by
the tangled paths they had followed in the morning, where, even with
his knowledge of the country, they were likely to be lost in the dusk.
Once on the plain Veronique rode slowly.
"Who is this Farrabesche whom you employ?" she asked her forester.
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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 of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: I must have remained there some time.
I sat up, strangely perplexed. For a moment, perhaps, I
could not clearly understand how I came there. My terror
had fallen from me like a garment. My hat had gone, and
my collar had burst away from its fastener. A few minutes
before, there had only been three real things before me--the
immensity of the night and space and nature, my own feeble-
ness and anguish, and the near approach of death. Now it
was as if something turned over, and the point of view altered
abruptly. There was no sensible transition from one state of
mind to the other. I was immediately the self of every day
 War of the Worlds |