| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.
LXX
That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater being woo'd of time;
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
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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: he had shut me up for six months in a confined room for my first
transgression; and I was certain that, after the scandalous
sensation caused by my flight from St. Sulpice, he would be sure
to treat me with infinitely more rigour now.
"At length, out of this chaos of fancies came an idea that all
at once restored ease to my mind, and which I was surprised at
not having hit upon sooner; this was, to go again to my friend
Tiberge, in whom I might be always sure of finding the same
unfailing zeal and friendship. There is nothing more
glorious--nothing that does more honour to true virtue, than the
confidence with which one approaches a friend of tried integrity;
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