| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: box with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a
hair's breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the
citizen class and those of the nobility--not altogether noble nor
altogether /bourgeoises/," said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.
"The press has fallen heir to the Woman," exclaimed Rastignac. "She no
longer has the quality of a spoken /feuilleton/--delightful calumnies
graced by elegant language. We read /feuilletons/ written in a dialect
which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as
an undertaker's mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French
conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in
a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: events would take place. This strange conjunction, it seems, has
as strangely come to pass. The same architect has been engaged
lately on the repairs of the cupola of the Exchange, and the
steeple of Bow church; and, fearful to relate, the dragon and
the grasshopper actually lie, cheek by jole, in the yard of his
workshop.
"Others," as Mr. Skryme is accustomed to say, "may go star-
gazing, and look for conjunctions in the heavens, but here is a
conjunction on the earth, near at home, and under our own eyes,
which surpasses all the signs and calculations of astrologers."
Since these portentous weathercocks have thus laid their heads
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