| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: Sechard senior living at a distance, far from the workshop and the
machinery which possessed such a fascination for him, reminding him,
as it did, of days when he was making his way, could FEEL that there
were disquieting symptoms of inactivity in his son. The name of
Cointet Brothers haunted him like a dread; he saw Sechard & Son
dropping into the second place. In short, the old man scented
misfortune in the wind.
His presentiments were too well founded; disaster was hovering over
the house of Sechard. But there is a tutelary deity for misers, and by
a chain of unforeseen circumstances that tutelary deity was so
ordering matters that the purchase-money of his extortionate bargain
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: woman who came here last night? [Coming round and sitting R. of
her.] You don't still imagine - no, you couldn't.
LADY WINDERMERE. I don't. I know now I was wrong and foolish.
LORD WINDERMERE. It was very good of you to receive her last night
- but you are never to see her again.
LADY WINDERMERE. Why do you say that? [A pause.]
LORD WINDERMERE. [Holding her hand.] Margaret, I thought Mrs.
Erlynne was a woman more sinned against than sinning, as the phrase
goes. I thought she wanted to be good, to get back into a place
that she had lost by a moment's folly, to lead again a decent life.
I believed what she told me - I was mistaken in her. She is bad -
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