| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: sustenance. He leaves that to the popular novelist. One
incomparable novelist we have now in England, Mr George Meredith.
There are better artists in France, but France has no one whose
view of life is so large, so varied, so imaginatively true. There
are tellers of stories in Russia who have a more vivid sense of
what pain in fiction may be. But to him belongs philosophy in
fiction. His people not merely live, but they live in thought.
One can see them from myriad points of view. They are suggestive.
There is soul in them and around them. They are interpretative and
symbolic. And he who made them, those wonderful quickly-moving
figures, made them for his own pleasure, and has never asked the
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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: Spilett feared such an aggravation of his condition that he would be
powerless to fight against it!
In fact, Herbert remained in an almost continuous state of drowsiness,
and symptoms of delirium began to manifest themselves. Refreshing drinks
were the only remedies at the colonists' disposal. The fever was not as yet
very high, but it soon appeared that it would probably recur at regular
intervals. Gideon Spilett first recognized this on the 6th of December.
The poor boy, whose fingers, nose, and ears had become extremely pale,
was at first seized with slight shiverings, horripilations, and tremblings.
His pulse was weak and irregular, his skin dry, his thirst intense. To this
soon succeeded a hot fit; his face became flushed; his skin reddened; his
 The Mysterious Island |