| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: and Pons, and all the names that we imagine for the two friends of
Monomotapa, for La Fontaine (man of genius though he was) has made of
them two disembodied spirits--they lack reality. The two new names may
join the illustrious company, and with so much the more reason, since
that Wilhelm who had helped to drink Fritz's inheritance now
proceeded, with Fritz's assistance, to devour his own substance;
smoking, needless to say, every known variety of tobacco.
The pair, strange to relate, squandered the property in the dullest,
stupidest, most commonplace fashion, in Strasbourg /brasseries/, in
the company of ballet-girls of the Strasbourg theatres, and little
Alsaciennes who had not a rag of a tattered reputation left.
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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 Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: life of connivances and concessions, she saw before her--
whenever she chose to take them--freedom, power and dignity.
Dignity! It was odd what weight that word had come to have for
her. She had dimly felt its significance, felt the need of its
presence in her inmost soul, even in the young thoughtless days
when she had seemed to sacrifice so little to the austere
divinities. And since she had been Nick Lansing's wife she had
consciously acknowledged it, had suffered and agonized when she
fell beneath its standard. Yes: to marry Strefford would give
her that sense of self-respect which, in such a world as theirs,
only wealth and position could ensure. If she had not the
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