| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: consciousness. She pushed back her chair, stood for an instant
watching Carl romping with Patsy, and then walked slowly toward
the stable.
By the time she reached the water-trough her old manner had
returned. Her step became once more elastic and firm; her strong
will asserted itself. She had work to do, and at once. In two
hours the board would meet. She needed all her energies and
resources. The lovers must wait; she could not decide any
question for them now.
As she passed the stable window a man in a fur cap raised his head
cautiously above the low fence and shrank back into the shadow.
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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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: still on the bed; all its blood had flowed out by the neck.
Seeing the eyes still open but fixed, seeing the blood which had
stained his sheets and even his hands, recognizing his own surgical
instrument beside him, Prosper Magnan fainted and fell into the pool
of Wahlenfer's blood. "It was," he said to me, "the punishment of my
thoughts." When he recovered consciousness he was in the public room,
seated on a chair, surrounded by French soldiers, and in presence of a
curious and observing crowd. He gazed stupidly at a Republican officer
engaged in taking the testimony of several witnesses, and in writing
down, no doubt, the "proces-verbal." He recognized the landlord, his
wife, the two boatmen, and the servant of the Red Inn. The surgical
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