| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: the rancor of the Bourbons against the Bonapartists. During the week
at Havre, a week which was horribly costly, she dared not ask him to
make terms with the royal government and apply to the minister of war.
She had hard work to get him away from Havre, where living is very
expensive, and to bring him back to Paris before her money gave out.
Madame Descoings and Joseph, who were awaiting their arrival in the
courtyard of the coach-office of the Messageries Royales, were struck
with the change in Agathe's face.
"Your mother has aged ten years in two months," whispered the
Descoings to Joseph, as they all embraced, and the two trunks were
being handed down.
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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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: shapes of shadow out of the great rounded hills, and made wild
orgiastic prayers that were answered by loud crackings and rumblings
from the ground below. In 1747 the Reverend Abijah Hoadley, newly
come to the Congregational Church at Dunwich Village, preached
a memorable sermon on the close presence of Satan and his imps;
in which he said:
"It must be allow'd, that these Blasphemies
of an infernall Train of Daemons are Matters of too common Knowledge
to be deny'd; the cursed Voices of Azazel and Buzrael, of Beelzebub
and Belial, being heard now from under Ground by above a Score
of credible Witnesses now living. I myself did not more than a
 The Dunwich Horror |