| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: against the neighboring wall, the posts are covered with jessamine and
honeysuckle, vines and clematis.
The house itself stands in the middle of this highest garden, above a
vine-covered flight of steps, with an arched doorway beneath that
leads to vast cellars hollowed out in the rock. All about the dwelling
trellised vines and pomegranate-trees (the grenadiers, which give the
name to the little close) are growing out in the open air. The front
of the house consists of two large windows on either side of a very
rustic-looking house door, and three dormer windows in the roof--a
slate roof with two gables, prodigiously high-pitched in proportion to
the low ground-floor. The house walls are washed with yellow color;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: born, gives it to Harpagus, one of his courtiers, to be slain. The
courtier relents, and hands it over to a herdsman, to be exposed on
the mountains. The herdsman relents in turn, and bring the babe up
as his own child.
When the boy, who goes by the name of Agradates, is grown, he is at
play with the other herdboys, and they choose him for a mimic king.
Some he makes his guards, some he bids build houses, some carry his
messages. The son of a Mede of rank refuses, and Agradates has him
seized by his guards and chastised with the whip. The ancestral
instincts of command and discipline are showing early in the lad.
The young gentleman complains to his father, the father to the old
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