| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: ``What mummery is this?'' said Cedric; ``think
you that we are ignorant whose prisoners we are,
when we are in the castle of your master? Tell
him,'' he continued, willing to use this opportunity
to open a negotiation for his freedom,---``Tell your
master, Reginald Front-de-Buf, that we know
no reason he can have for withholding our liberty,
excepting his unlawful desire to enrich himself at
our expense. Tell him that we yield to his rapacity,
as in similar circumstances we should do to
that of a literal robber. Let him name the ransom
Ivanhoe |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: look, he took Valerie's hand and forced her to sit down by him on the
settee.
"You are rather too lordly, Count Steinbock," said she, resisting a
little. But she laughed as she dropped on to the seat, not without
arranging the rosebud pinned into her bodice.
"Alas! if I were really lordly," said he, "I should not be here to
borrow money."
"Poor boy! I remember how you worked all night in the Rue du Doyenne.
You really were rather a spooney; you married as a starving man
snatches a loaf. You knew nothing of Paris, and you see where you are
landed. But you turned a deaf ear to Lisbeth's devotion, as you did to
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