| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: The promise of a clerkship in the Mint.
Fogarty Weffing
HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain
persons who are not in need of food and lodging.
HOSTILITY, n. A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the
earth's overpopulation. Hostility is classified as active and
passive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female
friends, and that which she entertains for all the rest of her sex.
HOURI, n. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make
things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence
marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a
 The Devil's Dictionary |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: "She has never been anything I could call a burden."
Strether for a moment said nothing; then he spoke gravely, with his
shade of dryness deepened. "Oh if you didn't do her justice--!"
"I SHOULD be a beast, eh?"
Strether devoted no time to saying what he would be; THAT, visibly,
would take them far. If there was nothing for it but to repeat,
however, repetition was no mistake. "You owe her everything--very
much more than she can ever owe you. You've in other words duties
to her, of the most positive sort; and I don't see what other
duties--as the others are presented to you--can be held to go
before them."
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