| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: TARLETON. _[continuing]_ --with a pistol, with which I threatened to
take the life of the said John Tarleton--
MRS TARLETON. Oh, John! You might have been killed.
TARLETON. --and was prevented from doing so only by the timely
arrival of the celebrated Miss Lina Szczepanowska.
MRS TARLETON. Is she celebrated? _[Apologetically]_ I never
dreamt--
BENTLEY. Look here: I'm awfully sorry; but I cant spell
Szczepanowska.
PERCIVAL. I think it's S, z, c, z-- _[Lina gives him her
visiting-card]._ Thank you. _[He throws it on Bentley's blotter]._
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: that has no other inclination to regard."
CHAPTER XXVII - DISQUISITION UPON GREATNESS.
THE conversation had a short pause. The Prince, having considered
his sister's observation, told her that she had surveyed life with
prejudice and supposed misery where she did not find it. "Your
narrative," says he, "throws yet a darker gloom upon the prospects
of futurity. The predictions of Imlac were but faint sketches of
the evils painted by Nekayah. I have been lately convinced that
quiet is not the daughter of grandeur or of power; that her
presence is not to be bought by wealth nor enforced by conquest.
It is evident that as any man acts in a wider compass he must be
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