| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: "It is quite true," said Monsieur de Granville, watching the convict.
"Really and truly! I may have absolution for the past and a promise of
succeeding to you if I give sufficient evidence of my intelligence?"
"Between two such men as we are there can be no misunderstanding,"
said Corentin, with a lordly air that might have taken anybody in.
"And the price of the bargain is, I suppose, the surrender of those
three packets of letters?" said Jacques Collin.
"I did not think it would be necessary to say so to you----"
"My dear Monsieur Corentin," said Trompe-la-Mort, with irony worthy of
that which made the fame of Talma in the part of Nicomede, "I beg to
decline. I am indebted to you for the knowledge of what I am worth,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: winnowing machine, scattered far away from one another the elements most
unlike, and forced the most similar elements into close contact. Wherefore
also the various elements had different places before they were arranged so
as to form the universe. At first, they were all without reason and
measure. But when the world began to get into order, fire and water and
earth and air had only certain faint traces of themselves, and were
altogether such as everything might be expected to be in the absence of
God; this, I say, was their nature at that time, and God fashioned them by
form and number. Let it be consistently maintained by us in all that we
say that God made them as far as possible the fairest and best, out of
things which were not fair and good. And now I will endeavour to show you
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