The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Like a race of valiant mortals,
Him to honour,--him, the youngest.
And one token on another
Rises up, the proof completing;
The identity is proven
Of himself, and of his comrades.
Now returns he to the cavern,
With him go both king and people.--
Neither to the king nor people
E'er returns that chosen mortal;
For the Seven, who for ages--
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: police-courts, induced his master to receive him. Can you see the man
of business, with an uneasy eye, a bald forehead, and scarcely any
hair on his head, standing in his threadbare jacket and muddy boots--"
"What a picture of a Dun!" cried Lousteau.
"--standing before the Count, that image of flaunting Debt, in his
blue flannel dressing-gown, slippers worked by some Marquise or other,
trousers of white woolen stuff, and a dazzling shirt? There he stood,
with a gorgeous cap on his black dyed hair, playing with the tassels
at his waist--"
" 'Tis a bit of genre for anybody who knows what the pretty little
morning room, hung with silk and full of valuable paintings, where
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