| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: her first husband, one of the three Directors of the land revenue. She
consulted the young lawyer as to whether she would do well to enter on
a lawsuit with her son-in-law, the Comte de Gross-Narp, who made her
daughter very miserable, and whether the law allowed her to dispose of
her fortune.
In spite of all his efforts, Massol could not be sure whether the
summons were addressed to the mistress or the maid. At the first
moment he had only glanced at this legal document of the most familiar
aspect; for, to save time, it is printed, and the magistrates' clerks
have only to fill in the blanks left for the names and addresses of
the witnesses, the hour for which they are called, and so forth.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: "Dioptrics" and "Meteorics" should offend at first sight, because I call
them hypotheses and seem indifferent about giving proof of them, I request
a patient and attentive reading of the whole, from which I hope those
hesitating will derive satisfaction; for it appears to me that the
reasonings are so mutually connected in these treatises, that, as the last
are demonstrated by the first which are their causes, the first are in
their turn demonstrated by the last which are their effects. Nor must it
be imagined that I here commit the fallacy which the logicians call a
circle; for since experience renders the majority of these effects most
certain, the causes from which I deduce them do not serve so much to
establish their reality as to explain their existence; but on the
Reason Discourse |
