| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: Royalists disapproved, on moral grounds, of his forced marriage;
besides, he was named Vinet, and how could they be expected to protect
a plebian? Thus he was driven from branch to branch when he tried to
get some good out of his marriage. Repulsed by every one, filled with
hatred for the family of his wife, for the government which denied him
a place, for the social world of Provins, which refused to admit him,
Vinet submitted to his fate; but his gall increased. He became a
Liberal in the belief that his fortune might yet be made by the
triumph of the opposition, and he lived in a miserable little house in
the Upper town from which his wife seldom issued. Madame Vinet had
found no one to defend her since her marriage except an old Madame de
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: really come from all the greatness she could live with. It was
fine to hear her talk so often of dinners of twenty and of her
doing, as she said, exactly as she liked with them. She spoke as
if, for that matter, she invited the company. "They simply give me
the table--all the rest, all the other effects, come afterwards."
CHAPTER VII
"Then you DO see them?" the girl again asked.
Mrs. Jordan hesitated, and indeed the point had been ambiguous
before. "Do you mean the guests?"
Her young friend, cautious about an undue exposure of innocence,
was not quite sure. "Well--the people who live there."
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