| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: "You have a daughter, Beauvouloir."
"Yes, monseigneur,--the child of my old age; my darling child.
Monseigneur, the duke, your father, charged me so earnestly to watch
your precious health that, not being able to go to Forcalier, where
she was, I have brought her here, to my great regret. In order to
conceal her from all eyes, I have placed her in the house monseigneur
used to occupy. She is so delicate I fear everything, even a sudden
sentiment or emotion. I have never taught her anything; knowledge
would kill her."
"She knows nothing!" cried Etienne, surprised.
"She has all the talents of a good housewife, but she has lived as the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: father was in some inexplicable way meaner-looking than she had
supposed, and yet also, as unaccountably, appealing. His tie had
demanded a struggle; he ought to have taken a clean one after his
first failure. Why was she noting things like this? Capes
seemed self-possessed and elaborately genial and commonplace, but
she knew him to be nervous by a little occasional clumsiness, by
the faintest shadow of vulgarity in the urgency of his
hospitality. She wished he could smoke and dull his nerves a
little. A gust of irrational impatience blew through her being.
Well, they'd got to the pheasants, and in a little while he would
smoke. What was it she had expected? Surely her moods were
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