| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: Eliza.
"The sly, methodical dogs! but I shall beat Lemorne yet!"
"How will you amuse yourself then, aunt?"
"I'll adopt some boys to inherit what I shall save from his
clutches."
The bath fatigued her so she remained in her room for the rest
of the day; but she kept me busy with a hundred trifles. I wrote
for her, computed interest, studied out bills of fare, till four
o'clock came, and with it a fog. Nevertheless I must ride on the
Avenue, and the carriage was ordered.
"Wear your silk, Margaret; it will just about last your visit
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: morning papers and too early for the evening ones, there is not a
general explosion heard up and down the street, scattering a
legion of antiquated and house-bred notions and whims to the four
winds for an airing-and so the evil cure itself.
How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men,
stand it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of
them do not STAND it at all. When, early in a summer afternoon,
we have been shaking the dust of the village from the skirts of
our garments, making haste past those houses with purely Doric or
Gothic fronts, which have such an air of repose about them, my
companion whispers that probably about these times their
Walking |
