| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: me to have an axe in your hand."
The Duchess was in a cold sweat, but nevertheless she laughed as
she spoke the last words.
"But circumstances give the story a quite new application,"
returned he.
"How so; pray tell me, for pity's sake?"
"In this way, madame--you have touched the axe," said
Montriveau, lowering his voice.
"What an enchanting prophecy!" returned she, smiling with
assumed grace. "And when is my head to fall?"
"I have no wish to see that pretty head of yours cut off. I
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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 Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: play to see the roads covered already with crowds flocking in on
all sides, their curiosity whetted still further by the prospect
of a Te Deum sung by torchlight. The old abbey church of San-
Lucar, a marvelous building erected by the Moors, a mosque of
Allah, which for three centuries had heard the name of Christ,
could not hold the throng that poured in to see the ceremony.
Hidalgos in their velvet mantles, with their good swords at their
sides, swarmed like ants, and were so tightly packed in among the
pillars that they had not room to bend the knees, which never
bent save to God. Charming peasant girls, in the basquina that
defines the luxuriant outlines of their figures, lent an arm to
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