| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: desired to make his own son a good man and a gentleman; he could not have
been jealous of him, or have intentionally abstained from imparting to him
his own virtue. Did you never hear that he made his son Cleophantus a
famous horseman; and had him taught to stand upright on horseback and hurl
a javelin, and to do many other marvellous things; and in anything which
could be learned from a master he was well trained? Have you not heard
from our elders of him?
ANYTUS: I have.
SOCRATES: Then no one could say that his son showed any want of capacity?
ANYTUS: Very likely not.
SOCRATES: But did any one, old or young, ever say in your hearing that
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: bear. But study was the exception, not the rule, and only undertaken
at the bidding of necessity; dinners and breakfasts, parties of
pleasure and play, took up most of his time, and Coralie absorbed all
that was left. He would not think of the morrow. He saw besides that
his so-called friends were leading the same life, earning money easily
by writing publishers' prospectuses and articles paid for by
speculators; all of them lived beyond their incomes, none of them
thought seriously of the future.
Lucien had been admitted into the ranks of journalism and of
literature on terms of equality; he foresaw immense difficulties in
the way if he should try to rise above the rest. Every one was willing
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