| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: along the gunwale of the canoe, while a quiverful of arrows hung on
each man's back. The eyes of the man-hunters missed nothing. They
had seen Sheldon and Joan first, but they gave no sign. Where
Gogoomy and his followers had emerged from the river, the canoe
abruptly stopped, then turned and disappeared into the deeper
mangrove gloom. A second and a third canoe came around the bend
from below, glided ghostlike to the crossing of the runaways, and
vanished in the mangroves.
"I hope there won't be any more killing," Joan said, as they turned
their horses homeward.
"I don't think so," Sheldon assured her. "My understanding with
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: world. Sometimes she provoked hazardous discussions, and probed the
inner consciousness of her lover by exaggerating her defects. At such
times she often wrung from Balthazar truths that were far from
flattering; but she loved the embarrassment into which he fell when
she had led him to say that what he loved in a woman was a noble soul
and the devotion which made each day of life a constant happiness; and
that after a few years of married life the handsomest of women was no
more to a husband than the ugliest. After gathering up what there was
of truth in all such paradoxes tending to reduce the value of beauty,
Balthazar would suddenly perceive the ungraciousness of his remarks,
and show the goodness of his heart by the delicate transitions of
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