| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: in her descent a private door which entered into the chapel from
the back-stair, she heard the voice of the female-servants as
they were employed in the task of cleaning it.
"Married! and to sae bad a man--Ewhow, sirs! onything rather
than that."
"They are right--they are right," said Miss Vere, "anything
rather than that!"
She hurried to the garden. Mr. Ratcliffe was true to his
appointment--the horses stood saddled at the garden-gate, and in
a few minutes they were advancing rapidly towards the hut of the
Solitary.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: hidden in strange amber; and they gave to her face something of the
frame of a saint, with not a little of the fascination of a sinner.
She was a curious psychological study. Early in life she had
discovered the important truth that nothing looks so like innocence
as an indiscretion; and by a series of reckless escapades, half of
them quite harmless, she had acquired all the privileges of a
personality. She had more than once changed her husband; indeed,
Debrett credits her with three marriages; but as she had never
changed her lover, the world had long ago ceased to talk scandal
about her. She was now forty years of age, childless, and with
that inordinate passion for pleasure which is the secret of
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