| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: see her at people's houses, that was all;" and her silence as
usual leaving room for a multiplication of blunders, he added,
with increased indifference, "I simply can't see what you can find
to interest you in such a book."
She seemed to consider this intently. "You've read it, then?"
"I glanced at it--I never read such things."
"Is it true that she didn't wish the letters to be published?"
Glennard felt the sudden dizziness of the mountaineer on a narrow
ledge, and with it the sense that he was lost if he looked more
than a step ahead.
"I'm sure I don't know," he said; then, summoning a smile, he
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: Marcher's sense, gave the scene of which she formed part a smooth
and ultimate look, an air of knowing, in its immaculate order and
cold meaningless cheer, that it would never see a fire again. Her
own aspect--he could scarce have said why--intensified this note.
Almost as white as wax, with the marks and signs in her face as
numerous and as fine as if they had been etched by a needle, with
soft white draperies relieved by a faded green scarf on the
delicate tone of which the years had further refined, she was the
picture of a serene and exquisite but impenetrable sphinx, whose
head, or indeed all whose person, might have been powdered with
silver. She was a sphinx, yet with her white petals and green
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