| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: charming an instinct as that which permitted her to laugh out, as
for the joy of her difficulty, into the priggish old room. This
remarkable young woman could be earnest without being solemn, and
at moments when I ought doubtless to have cursed her obstinacy I
found myself watching the unstudied play of her eyebrows or the
recurrence of a singularly intense whiteness produced by the
parting of her lips. These aberrations, I hasten to add, didn't
prevent my learning soon enough why she had wished to see me. Her
reason for this was as distinct as her beauty: it was to make me
explain what I had meant, on the occasion of our first meeting, by
Mr. Saltram's want of dignity. It wasn't that she couldn't
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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 Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: to be anxious about their situation. They had faith in themselves,
doubtless, but it must be observed that the basis of this faith was not the
same with Harding as with his companions. The engineer had confidence,
because he felt capable of extorting from this wild country everything
necessary for the life of himself and his companions; the latter feared
nothing, just because Cyrus Harding was with them. Pencroft especially,
since the incident of the relighted fire, would not have despaired for an
instant, even if he was on a bare rock, if the engineer was with him on the
rock.
"Pshaw," said he, "we left Richmond without permission from the
authorities! It will be hard if we don't manage to get away some day or
 The Mysterious Island |