| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: man's being in love if he chose. We are advancing now to some kind of
confidence, and in short are likely to be engaged in a sort of platonic
friendship. On my side you may be sure of its never being more, for if I
were not attached to another person as much as I can be to anyone, I should
make a point of not bestowing my affection on a man who had dared to think
so meanly of me. Reginald has a good figure and is not unworthy the praise
you have heard given him, but is still greatly inferior to our friend at
Langford. He is less polished, less insinuating than Mainwaring, and is
comparatively deficient in the power of saying those delightful things
which put one in good humour with oneself and all the world. He is quite
agreeable enough, however, to afford me amusement, and to make many of
 Lady Susan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: me."
On hearing this speech, which at that time was regarded as seditious,
Roger interrupted the old lady by rising suddenly, and they returned
to the village through the park walks. The young man left them for a
few minutes while he went to order a meal at the best eating-house in
Taverny; then, returning to fetch them, he led the way through the
alleys cut in the forest.
The dinner was cheerful. Roger was no longer the melancholy shade that
was wont to pass along the Rue du Tourniquet; he was not the "Black
Gentleman," but rather a confiding young man ready to take life as it
came, like the two hard-working women who, on the morrow, might lack
|