| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: He jumped for the stair-foot, and closed the door behind him;
and as he snatched his candle and fled upward,
the stillness of the night was broken by the sound of urgent footsteps
approaching the house. In another moment he was in his room,
and the twins were standing aghast over the body of the murdered man!
Tom put on his coat, buttoned his hat under it, threw on his
suit of girl's clothes, dropped the veil, blew out his light,
locked the room door by which he had just entered, taking the key,
passed through his other door into the black hall,
locked that door and kept the key, then worked his way along in the dark
and descended the black stairs. He was not expecting to meet anybody,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Some beauty peeped through lattice of sear'd age.
Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.
Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride;
As they did battery to the spheres intend;
Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied
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