| 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: "This is the man--the man who came for my husband!"
She heard Parvis start to his feet, and was dimly aware that she
had slipped backward into the corner of the sofa, and that he was
bending above her in alarm. With an intense effort she
straightened herself, and reached out for the paper, which she
had dropped.
"It's the man! I should know him anywhere!" she cried in a voice
that sounded in her own ears like a scream.
Parvis's voice seemed to come to her from far off, down endless,
fog-muffled windings.
"Mrs. Boyne, you're not very well. Shall I call somebody? Shall
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: life of a frivolous Frenchwoman? why did you devour the goods of God
with churchmen, the substance of the poor with extortioners and
fleecers of the poor? Oh! I have sinned indeed!--Oh my God! my God!
let me finish my time in hell here in this world of misery."
And again she cried, "Holy Virgin, Mother of God, have pity upon me!"
"Be comforted, mother. God is not a Lombard usurer. I may have killed
people good and bad at random in my time, but I am not afraid of the
resurrection."
"Ah! master Lancepesade, how happy those fair ladies are, to be so
near to a bishop, a holy man! They will get absolution for their
sins," said the old woman. "Oh! if I could only hear a priest say to
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