| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: treatises of John Frith, the Protestant martyr. No wonder, after such a meal,
he was soon caught, and became famous in the annals of literature.
The following is the title of a little book issued upon the occasion:
"Vox Piscis, or the Book-Fish containing Three Treatises, which were found
in the belly of a Cod-Fish in Cambridge Market on Midsummer Eve, A'0 1626."
Lowndes says (see under "Tracey,") "great was the consternation at Cambridge
upon the publication of this work."
Rats and mice, however, are occasionally very destructive,
as the following anecdote will show: Two centuries ago, the library
of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster was kept in the Chapter House,
and repairs having become necessary in that building, a scaffolding
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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 Touchstone by Edith Wharton: In the light of this final humiliation his assumption of his
wife's indifference struck him as hardly so fatuous as the
sentimental resuscitation of his past. He had been living in a
factitious world wherein his emotions were the sycophants of his
vanity, and it was with instinctive relief that he felt its ruins
crash about his head.
It was nearly dark when he left his office, and he walked slowly
homeward in the complete mental abeyance that follows on such a
crisis. He was not aware that he was thinking of his wife; yet
when he reached his own door he found that, in the involuntary
readjustment of his vision, she had once more become the central
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