| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: "I'll tell her, Nelson," she promised; and climbed the stairs
alone to her dreary room.
Susy's one fear was that Strefford, when he returned the next
day, should treat their talk of the previous evening as a fit of
"nerves" to be jested away. He might, indeed, resent her
behaviour too deeply to seek to see her at once; but his
easygoing modern attitude toward conduct and convictions made
that improbable. She had an idea that what he had most minded
was her dropping so unceremoniously out of the Embassy Dinner.
But, after all, why should she see him again? She had had
enough of explanations during the last months to have learned
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: Fronde last?"
"For what purpose do you put such a question to me?"
"For a medical calculation, monseigneur."
"Well, some ten years -- off and on."
"Very well, be kind enough to reckon every year of the
Fronde as three years -- that makes thirty; now twenty and
fifty-two makes seventy-two years. You are seventy-two, my
lord; and that is a great age."
Whilst saying this, he felt the pulse of his patient. This
pulse was full of such fatal indications, that the physician
continued, notwithstanding the interruptions of the patient:
Ten Years Later |
