| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: discovered his clandestine connexion, the magnet that had drawn him
for so many years, and doubtless attached a significance of their
own to the odd words they had repeated to him. The nameless lady
was the clandestine connexion - a fact nothing could have made
clearer than his indecent haste to rejoin her. He sank on his
knees before his altar while his head fell over on his hands. His
weakness, his life's weariness overtook him. It seemed to him he
had come for the great surrender. At first he asked himself how he
should get away; then, with the failing belief in the power, the
very desire to move gradually left him. He had come, as he always
came, to lose himself; the fields of light were still there to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: were they spent? Where are thy treasures?--what great deeds hast thou
done?"
At this demand, the shriveled woman raised her bony form, flung off
her rags, and grew tall and radiant, smiling as she broke forth from
the dark chrysalid sheath. Then like a butterfly, this diaphanous
creature emerged, fair and youthful, clothed in white linen, an Indian
from creation issuing her palms. Her golden hair rippled over her
shoulders, her eyes glowed, a bright mist clung about her, a ring of
gold hovered above her head, she shook the flaming blade of a sword
towards the spaces of heaven.
"See and believe!" she cried.
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