| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: for fifteen hundred francs, would but marry her, as he certainly has
not long to live, and as he is said to have some few thousand of
francs a year--well, the poor thing, who is a sweet little angel,
would be out of mischief, and above want, which must be the ruin of
her."
"Thank you very much for the information. I may do some good, but I
must act with caution.--Who is the old man?"
"Oh! madame, he is a good old fellow; he makes the child very happy,
and he has some sense too, for he left the part of town where the
Judicis live, as I believe, to snatch the child from her mother's
clutches. The mother was jealous of her, and I dare say she thought
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: gaunt hoarding advertised extensively the Princhester Music Hall,
a mean beastly place that corrupted boys and girls; and also it
clamoured of tyres and potted meats....
The afternoon's conference gave him no reassuring answer to his
question, "Where is it all going?"
The afternoon's conference did no more than intensify the new
and strange sense of alienation from the world that the morning's
talk had evoked.
The three labour extremists that Morrice Deans had assembled
obviously liked the bishop and found him picturesque, and were
not above a certain snobbish gratification at the purple-trimmed
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