| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: almost to fear, and he wondered was it for him.
"To place my sword at his service Were I not encompassed by this ruin,
I should not have stirred a foot in that direction - so rash, so
foredoomed to failure is this invasion. As it is," - he shrugged and
laughed - "it is the only hope - all forlorn though it may be - for me."
The trammels she had imposed upon her soul fell away at that like bonds
of cobweb. She laid her hand upon his wrists, tears stood in her eyes;
her lips quivered.
"Anthony, forgive me," she besought him. He trembled under her touch,
under the caress of her voice, and at the sound of his name for the
first time upon her lips.
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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 Jungle by Upton Sinclair: one small window in each end. The street in front of the house was
unpaved and unlighted, and the view from it consisted of a few exactly
similar houses, scattered here and there upon lots grown up with dingy
brown weeds. The house inside contained four rooms, plastered white;
the basement was but a frame, the walls being unplastered and the floor
not laid. The agent explained that the houses were built that way, as the
purchasers generally preferred to finish the basements to suit their own
taste. The attic was also unfinished--the family had been figuring that
in case of an emergency they could rent this attic, but they found that
there was not even a floor, nothing but joists, and beneath them the lath
and plaster of the ceiling below. All of this, however, did not chill
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