| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: repeated that lament again and again in heartbreaking tones,
and got out of a drawer a paper, which he slowly tore to bits,
scattering the bits absently in his track as he walked up
and down the room, still grieving and lamenting. At last he said:
"There it is, shreds and fragments once more--my will. Once more you
have forced me to disinherit you, you base son of a most noble father!
Leave my sight! Go--before I spit on you!"
The young man did not tarry. Then the judge turned to Howard:
"You will be my second, old friend?"
"Of course."
"There is pen and paper. Draft the cartel, and lose no time."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: plummet and a measurement of the abyss. A difference had been made
moreover, once for all, by the fact that she had all the while not
appeared to feel the need of rebutting his charge of an idea within
her that she didn't dare to express--a charge uttered just before
one of the fullest of their later discussions ended. It had come
up for him then that she "knew" something and that what she knew
was bad--too bad to tell him. When he had spoken of it as visibly
so bad that she was afraid he might find it out, her reply had left
the matter too equivocal to be let alone and yet, for Marcher's
special sensibility, almost too formidable again to touch. He
circled about it at a distance that alternately narrowed and
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