| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: provost.
The duke and the cardinal consulted together in a low voice.
"What is to be done with him?" asked the executioner.
"Send him to the prison at Orleans," said the duke, addressing
Monsieur de Montresor; "and don't hang him without my order."
The extreme sensitiveness to which Christophe's internal organism had
been brought, increased by a resistance which called into play every
power of the human body, existed to the same degree, in his senses. He
alone heard the following words whispered by the Duc de Guise in the
ear of his brother the cardinal:
"I don't give up all hope of getting the truth out of that little
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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 Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: tea. He was gifted in the way of knocking together edibles when haste
and muscle and quantity was to be considered. He held the record west
of the Arkansas River for frying pancakes with his left hand, broiling
venison cutlets with his right, and skinning a rabbit with his teeth
at the same time. But I could do things /en casserole/ and /a la
creole/, and handle the oil and tobasco as gently and nicely as a
French /chef/.
So at twelve o'clock we had a hot lunch ready that looked like a
banquet on a Mississippi River steamboat. We spread it on the tops of
two or three big boxes, opened two quarts of the red wine, set the
olives and a canned oyster cocktail and a ready-made Martini by the
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