The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: on and partly checked, as for a scruple, by the charm of attempting
to sound the little cool shallows that were so quickly growing
deeper. When he tried to figure to himself the morning twilight of
childhood, so as to deal with it safely, he saw it was never fixed,
never arrested, that ignorance, at the instant he touched it, was
already flushing faintly into knowledge, that there was nothing
that at a given moment you could say an intelligent child didn't
know. It seemed to him that he himself knew too much to imagine
Morgan's simplicity and too little to disembroil his tangle.
The boy paid no heed to his last remark; he only went on: "I'd
have spoken to them about their idea, as I call it, long ago, if I
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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 $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: and I am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get
a rest.
FRIDAY.--She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree,
and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education.
I told her there would be another result, too--it would introduce
death into the world. That was a mistake--it had been better
to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an idea--she could
save the sick buzzard, and furnish fresh meat to the despondent
lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree.
She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will emigrate.
WEDNESDAY.--I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night,
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