| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: the house looked like a chapel. Economy and expense seemed to be
struggling for the upper hand in every accessory. It was as though
Monsieur Guillaume had looked to a good investment, even in the
purchase of a candlestick. In the midst of this bazaar, where splendor
revealed the owner's want of occupation, Sommervieux's famous picture
filled the place of honor, and in it Monsieur and Madame Guillaume
found their chief consolation, turning their eyes, harnessed with eye-
glasses, twenty times a day on this presentment of their past life, to
them so active and amusing. The appearance of this mansion and these
rooms, where everything had an aroma of staleness and mediocrity, the
spectacle offered by these two beings, cast away, as it were, on a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ
from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too
flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually
had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of
the tabernacle!
"Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a
father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no
obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered
Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging
for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's
intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute
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