| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: gave her terrible shooting pains, Celestine turned upon Xavier
Rabourdin. Was it not her husband's duty to give her a suitable
position in the world? If she were a man she would have had the energy
to make a rapid fortune for the sake of rendering an adored wife
happy! She reproached him for being too honest a man. In the mouth of
some women this accusation is a charge of imbecility. She sketched out
for him certain brilliant plans in which she took no account of the
hindrances imposed by men and things; then, like all women under the
influence of vehement feeling, she became in thought as Machiavellian
as Gondreville, and more unprincipled than Maxime de Trailles. At such
times Celestine's mind took a wide range, and she imagined herself at
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: by
Platonic Imitator (see Appendix II above)
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Eryxias, Erasistratus, Critias.
SCENE: The portico of a temple of Zeus.
It happened by chance that Eryxias the Steirian was walking with me in the
Portico of Zeus the Deliverer, when there came up to us Critias and
Erasistratus, the latter the son of Phaeax, who was the nephew of
Erasistratus. Now Erasistratus had just arrived from Sicily and that part
of the world. As they approached, he said, Hail, Socrates!
SOCRATES: The same to you, I said; have you any good news from Sicily to
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