The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: trees were clearly marked, and the rocks and the willow trees cast dark
shadows.
In her sleep she shivered, and half awoke.
"Ah, I am not there, I am here," she said; and she crept closer to the
rock, and kissed it, and went to sleep again.
It must have been about three o'clock, for the moon had begun to sink
towards the western sky, when she woke, with a violent start. She sat up,
and pressed her hand against her heart.
"What can it be? A cony must surely have run across my feet and frightened
me!" she said, and she turned to lie down again; but soon she sat up.
Outside, there was the distinct sound of thorns crackling in a fire.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: familiar compatriot as she was, with the full tone of the
compatriot and the rattling link not with mystery but only with
dear dyspeptic Waymarsh--she appeared distinctly to promise. His
pause while he felt in his overcoat was positively the pause of
confidence, and it enabled his eyes to make out as much of a case
for her, in proportion, as her own made out for himself. She
affected him as almost insolently young; but an easily carried
five-and-thirty could still do that. She was, however, like himself
marked and wan; only it naturally couldn't have been known to him
how much a spectator looking from one to the other might have
discerned that they had in common. It wouldn't for such a spectator
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