| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: comforts and enjoyments to which he had a right. She herself spent the
greater part of her time there. Together the mother and child roamed
over the rocks and the shore, keeping strictly within the limits of
the boy's domain of beach and shells, of moss and pebbles. The boy's
terror of his father was so great that, like the Lapp, who lives and
dies in his snow, he made a native land of his rocks and his cottage,
and was terrified and uneasy if he passed his frontier.
The duchess, knowing her child was not fitted to find happiness except
in some humble and retired sphere, did not regret the fate that was
thus imposed upon him; she used this enforced vocation to prepare him
for a noble life of study and science, and she brought to the chateau
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: made you decide not to--any longer?"
She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. "Why--the wish
to please you!" he answered, almost too simply.
"I wish you would not go on, then," she said abruptly.
He stopped in his quick walk, and she felt his stare through the
darkness.
"Not go on--?"
"Call a hansom, please. I'm tired," broke from her with a sudden
rush of physical weariness.
Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been
infernally hot--and then that confounded cigarette smoke--he had
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