| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: matter, the assailants would have killed the senator. Perhaps he had
been killed and buried. The abduction, however, seemed to point to
imprisonment. But why keep their victim imprisoned after searching the
castle? It was folly to suppose that the abduction of a dignitary of
the Empire could long remain secret. The publicity of the matter would
prevent any benefit from it.
To these suggestions Pigoult replied that justice was never able to
make out all the motives of scoundrels. In every criminal case there
were obscurities, he said, between the judge and the guilty person;
conscience had depths into which no human mind could enter unless by
the confession of the criminal.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: "Yes, I made his acquaintance before night and got his friendship."
"I liked him. Did you?"
"Not at first. He took me for a reptile, and it troubled me,
because I didn't know whether it was a compliment or not. I
couldn't ask him, because it would look ignorant. So I didn't say
anything, and soon liked him very well indeed. Was it a
compliment, do you think?"
"Yes, that is what it was. They are very rare, the reptiles; very
few left, now-a-days."
"Is that so? What is a reptile?"
"It is a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasn't
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