| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: I've a half-written play as security. . .'
"I shall never forget his glassy stare. His face had grown as
smooth as an egg-shell again--his eyes peered over his fat cheeks
like sentinels over a slippery rampart.
"'A half-written play--a play of YOURS as security?' He looked
at me almost fearfully, as if detecting the first symptoms of
insanity. 'Do you understand anything of business?' he enquired
mildly. I laughed and answered: 'No, not much.'
"He leaned back with closed lids. 'All this excitement has been
too much for me,' he said. 'If you'll excuse me, I'll prepare
for my nap.' And I stumbled out of the room, blindly, like the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: come alive out of that butchery, it was, no doubt, because I was
reserved for some fate which I am bound to endure without murmuring.
God will protect His own; He can do with them according to His will.
It is for you, not for me that we must think."
"No," answered one of the women. "What is our life compared to a
priest's life?"
"Once outside the Abbaye de Chelles, I look upon myself as dead,"
added the nun who had not left the house, while the Sister that had
just returned held out the little box to the priest.
"Here are the wafers . . . but I can hear some one coming up the
stairs."
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