| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: Guy Walsingham and Dora Forbes proclaimed in chorus from the same
pictured walls that no one had yet got ahead of him.
Paraday had been promptly caught and saddled, accepting with
characteristic good-humour his confidential hint that to figure in
his show was not so much a consequence as a cause of immortality.
From Mrs. Wimbush to the last "representative" who called to
ascertain his twelve favourite dishes, it was the same ingenuous
assumption that he would rejoice in the repercussion. There were
moments when I fancied I might have had more patience with them if
they hadn't been so fatally benevolent. I hated at all events Mr.
Rumble's picture, and had my bottled resentment ready when, later
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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 Recruit by Honore de Balzac: roads on foot."
"There's eight o'clock striking now," cried the countess, in terror.
She dared not stay away any longer from her guests; but before
re-entering the salon, she paused a moment under the peristyle of the
staircase, listening if any sound were breaking the silence of the
street. She smiled at Brigitte's husband, who was standing sentinel at
the door, and whose eyes seemed stupefied by the intensity of his
attention to the murmurs of the street and night.
Madame de Dey re-entered her salon, affecting gaiety, and began to
play loto with the young people; but after a while she complained of
feeling ill, and returned to her chimney-corner.
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