| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: would be safe in your hands. And I cannot have her sacrificed!
LORD GORING. Sacrificed!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Yes, utterly sacrificed. Loveless marriages
are horrible. But there is one thing worse than an absolutely
loveless marriage. A marriage in which there is love, but on one
side only; faith, but on one side only; devotion, but on one side
only, and in which of the two hearts one is sure to be broken.
LORD GORING. But I love Mabel. No other woman has any place in my
life.
LADY CHILTERN. Robert, if they love each other, why should they not
be married?
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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 American by Henry James: to return to France. The simplest thing was to repair
to Liverpool and embark on the first American steamer.
Newman made his way to the great seaport and secured his berth;
and the night before sailing he sat in his room at the hotel,
staring down, vacantly and wearily, at an open portmanteau.
A number of papers were lying upon it, which he had been meaning
to look over; some of them might conveniently be destroyed.
But at last he shuffled them roughly together, and pushed
them into a corner of the valise; they were business papers,
and he was in no humor for sifting them. Then he drew
forth his pocket-book and took out a paper of smaller
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