| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: looking boy whom we recognized as a street waif that had been
taken into what some one called our "raggedy school" a few years
before. He was a glum looking boy--a boy without a smile. There
was a set expression on his face which might be interpreted as
"life is not worth living," or, which would be an equally
legitimate interpretation in the present instance, "these games
are of no importance. If you want them we can play any number of
them for you, but what will you do with them after you get them?"
All the crowd began at once to explain to Chi what we wanted,
and he looked more solemn than ever, then we came to his rescue.
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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 Jolly Corner by Henry James: about them, to ask questions, in fine, and challenge explanations
and really "go into" figures.
It amused, it verily quite charmed him; and, by the same stroke, it
amused, and even more, Alice Staverton, though perhaps charming her
perceptibly less. She wasn't, however, going to be better-off for
it, as HE was - and so astonishingly much: nothing was now likely,
he knew, ever to make her better-off than she found herself, in the
afternoon of life, as the delicately frugal possessor and tenant of
the small house in Irving Place to which she had subtly managed to
cling through her almost unbroken New York career. If he knew the
way to it now better than to any other address among the dreadful
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