| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: "Doesn't it appear that of late he has been particularly horrid?"
"His fluctuations don't matter", I returned, "for at night all cats
are grey. You saw the shade of this one the night we waited for
him together. What will you have? He has no dignity."
Miss Anvoy, who had been introducing with her American
distinctness, looked encouragingly round at some of the
combinations she had risked. "It's too bad I can't see him."
"You mean Gravener won't let you?"
"I haven't asked him. He lets me do everything."
"But you know he knows him and wonders what some of us see in him."
"We haven't happened to talk of him," the girl said.
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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 Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: the plot; but the governor was his uncle on the mother's side, and I
have unfortunately read the letter in which he begged him to apply to
Deodatus, the name agreed upon by the Court to designate the King. In
this letter there is a tone of jocosity with reference to the victim,
which filled me with horror. In the end, the sums of money sent by the
refugee family to ransom the poor man were kept by the governor, who
despatched the merchant all the same."
The Marquis paused, as though the memory of it were still too heavy
for him to bear.
"This unfortunate family were named Jeanrenaud," he went on. "That
name is enough to account for my conduct. I could never think without
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