| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: Presently, a look cast by the young man on Mademoiselle Cormon carried
to the soul of the chevalier a sudden gleam. That momentary flash of
lightning enabled him to read the past.
"Ha! the devil!" he said to himself; "what a checkmate I'm exposed
to!"
Monsieur de Valois now approached Mademoiselle Cormon, and offered his
arm. The old maid's feeling to the chevalier was that of respectful
consideration; and certainly his name, together with the position he
occupied among the aristocratic constellations of the department made
him the most brilliant ornament of her salon. In her inmost mind
Mademoiselle Cormon had wished for the last dozen years to become
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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 Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "The Temple of Issus is, I take it, a heaven within a
heaven," I said. "Let us hope that there it will be meted to
the therns as they have meted it here unto others."
"Who knows?" the girl murmured.
"The therns, I judge from what you have said, are no
less mortal than we; and yet have I always heard them spoken
of with the utmost awe and reverence by the people of
Barsoom, as one might speak of the gods themselves."
"The therns are mortal," she replied. "They die from the
same causes as you or I might: those who do not live their
allotted span of life, one thousand years, when by the authority
 The Gods of Mars |