| 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: have been impossible, however, if the listener could have heard
them converse, and seen them on their guard with men whom they
feared, vapid and commonplace with their equals, slippery with
the inferiors whom courtiers and statesmen know how to tame by a
tactful word, or to humiliate with an unexpected phrase.
Such were the representatives of the great noblesse that
determined to perish rather than submit to any change. It was a
noblesse that deserved praise and blame in equal measure; a
noblesse that will never be judged impartially until some poet
shall arise to tell how joyfully the nobles obeyed the King
though their heads fell under a Richelieu's axe, and how deeply
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: let alone the wanton superfluity and uselessness of any such a loafing
consumptive hospital-bird of a Had taking up room and cumbering
the place for nothing. These finical refinements revolt me;
it is not right, it is not honorable; it is constructive nepotism
to keep in office a Had that is so delicate it can't come out when
the wind's in the nor'west--I won't have this dude on the payroll.
Cancel his exequator; and look here--"
"But you miss the point. It is like this. You see--"
"Never mind explaining, I don't care anything about it. Six Hads
is enough for me; anybody that needs twelve, let him subscribe;
I don't want any stock in a Had Trust. Knock out the Prolonged
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