The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: "I've seen a lot of pictures, and learnt a lot about them--at the
Pitti and the Brera,--the Brera is wonderful--wonderful places,--but
it isn't like real study," she was saying presently. . . . "We
bought bales of photographs," she said.
I thought the bales a little out of keeping.
But fair-haired and quite simply and yet graciously and fancifully
dressed, talking of art and beautiful things and a beautiful land,
and with so much manifest regret for learning denied, she seemed a
different kind of being altogether from my smart, hard, high-
coloured, black-haired and resolutely hatted cousin; she seemed
translucent beside Gertrude. Even the little twist and droop of her
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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 Memorabilia by Xenophon: a harbour of refuge, could not make too much of his patron, and ere
long he had hunted up a long list of iniquities which could be lodged
against Crito's pettifogging persecutors themselves, and not only
their numerous crimes but their numerous enemies; and presently he
prosecuted one of them in a public suit, where sentence would be given
against him "what to suffer or what to pay."[5] The accused, conscious
as he was of many rascally deeds, did all he could to be quit of
Archedemus, but Archedemus was not to be got rid of. He held on until
he had made the informer not only loose his hold of Crito but pay
himself a sum of money; and now that Archedemus had achieved this and
other similar victories, it is easy to guess what followed.[6] It was
 The Memorabilia |