| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: cover them with confusion. They might as well set siege to the
town and convent, like pirates, and leave not a single soul to
tell of their victory. So for them their expedition wore but two
aspects. There should be a conflagration and a feat of arms that
should dismay all Europe, while the motives of the crime remained
unknown; or, on the other hand, a mysterious, aerial descent
which should persuade the nuns that the Devil himself had paid
them a visit. They had decided upon the latter course in the
secret council held before they left Paris, and subsequently
everything had been done to insure the success of an expedition
which promised some real excitement to jaded spirits weary of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: was fain to obey.
"Empty words, after all," Zephirine remarked to Francis, "and love is
a poem that we live."
"You have just expressed the very thing that I was thinking, Zizine,
but I should not have put it so neatly," said Stanislas, scanning
himself from top to toe with loving attention.
"I would give, I don't know how much, to see Nais' pride brought down
a bit," said Amelie, addressing Chatelet. "Nais sets up to be an
archangel, as if she were better than the rest of us, and mixes us up
with low people; his father was an apothecary, and his mother is a
nurse; his sister works in a laundry, and he himself is a printer's
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