| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: The friendship of such a woman as the Baronne de Nucingen is of a kind
that sets a man abjuring egoism in all its forms.
"Delphine had been deceived once already; in her first venture of the
affections she came across a piece of Birmingham manufacture, in the
shape of the late lamented de Marsay; and therefore she could not but
feel a limitless affection for a young provincial's articles of faith.
Her tenderness reacted upon Rastignac. So by the time that Nucingen
had put his wife's friend into the harness in which the exploiter
always gets the exploited, he had reached the precise juncture when he
(the Baron) meditated a third suspension of payment. To Rastignac he
confided his position; he pointed out to Rastignac a means of making
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: could not be precisely said of them, either, that they made a part of the
young man's daily reading. As he surveyed the Padre's august shelves, it
was with a touch of the histrionic Southern gravity which his Northern
education had not wholly schooled out of him that he said:
"I fear I am no scholar, sir. But I know what writers every gentleman
ought to respect."
The polished Padre bowed gravely to this compliment.
It was when his eyes caught sight of the music that the young man felt
again at ease, and his vivacity returned to him. Leaving his chair, he
began enthusiastically to examine the tall piles that filled one side of
the room. The volumes lay piled and scattered everywhere, making a
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