| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: I feel that I am not wasting my time--"
Miss Allan, being thus addressed, shut her novel and observed
the others placidly for a time. At last she said, "It is surely
not natural to leave your wife because she happens to be in love
with you. But that--as far as I can make out--is what the gentleman
in my story does."
"Tut, tut, that doesn't sound good--no, that doesn't sound
at all natural," murmured the knitters in their absorbed voices.
"Still, it's the kind of book people call very clever," Miss Allan added.
"_Maternity_--by Michael Jessop--I presume," Mr. Elliot put in,
for he could never resist the temptation of talking while he
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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 Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: weather, had gained a fairly long truce from the gout, met Lady
Dudley. The distinguished foreigner had with her in her open carriage
Monsieur Vandenesse. Emilie recognized the handsome couple, and her
suppositions were at once dissipated like a dream. Annoyed, as any
woman must be whose expectations are frustrated, she touched up her
horse so suddenly that her uncle had the greatest difficulty in
following her, she had set off at such a pace.
"I am too old, it would seem, to understand these youthful spirits,"
said the old sailor to himself as he put his horse to a canter; "or
perhaps young people are not what they used to be. But what ails my
niece? Now she is walking at a foot-pace like a gendarme on patrol in
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