| 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: ability for bartering their ideas for such pitiful small change.
The Duke suddenly stopped as if some bright idea occurred to him,
and remarked to his neighbour--
"So you have sold Tornthon?"
"No, he is ill. I am very much afraid I shall lose him, and I
should be uncommonly sorry. He is a very good hunter. Do you
know how the Duchesse de Marigny is?"
"No. I did not go this morning. I was just going out to call
when you came in to speak about Antoinette. But yesterday she
was very ill indeed; they had given her up, she took the
sacrament."
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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 Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson: And his, and hate's. And there was the struggle!
As long as the earth we tread holds something
A tortured heart can love, the meaning
Of life is not wholly blurred; but after
The last loved thing in the world has left us,
We know the triumph of hate. The glory
Of good goes out forever; the beacon
Of sin is the light that leads us downward --
Down to the fiery end. The road runs
Right through hell; and the souls that follow
The cursed ways where its windings lead them
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