| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: competition, one blue ribbon that always carries the highest critical
rank with it. To win, you must write the best book of your generation
on Shakespear. It is felt on all sides that to do this a certain
fastidious refinement, a delicacy of taste, a correctness of manner
and tone, and high academic distinction in addition to the
indispensable scholarship and literary reputation, are needed; and men
who pretend to these qualifications are constantly looked to with a
gentle expectation that presently they will achieve the great feat.
Now if there is a man on earth who is the utter contrary of everything
that this description implies; whose very existence is an insult to
the ideal it realizes; whose eye disparages, whose resonant voice
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: knew no bounds. She had already been an inmate of the Magdalen;
and even if she had left it by fair means, I knew that a relapse
of this nature would be attended with disastrous consequences. I
wished to let her know my fears: I was apprehensive of exciting
hers. I trembled for her, without daring to put her on her guard
against the danger; and I embraced her tenderly, to satisfy her,
at least, of my love, which was almost the only sentiment to
which I dared to give expression. `Manon,' said I, `tell me
sincerely, will you ever cease to love me?'
"She answered, that it made her unhappy to think that I could
doubt it.
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