| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: their influence. He belongs to the faubourg Saint-Germain."
"Oh! he is received there, and that is all," said a lady, who had
tried to obtain him as a son-in-law. "Mademoiselle Evangelista, as the
daughter of a merchant, will certainly not open the doors of the
chapter-house of Cologne to him!"
"She is grand-niece to the Duke of Casa-Reale."
"Through the female line!"
The topic was presently exhausted. The card-players went to the
tables, the young people danced, the supper was served, and the ball
was not over till morning, when the first gleams of the coming day
whitened the windows.
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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 Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: kept spotlessly clean, as was the entire crypt as far as he could
see it by the light of his flickering candle. He was not surprised
to discover that the air was perfectly pure here. There must be
windows or ventilators somewhere, this he knew from the way his
candle behaved.
The ancient vault had a high arched ceiling and heavy massive
pillars. It was a subterranean repetition of the church above.
There had evidently been a convent attached to this church at one
time; for here stood a row of simple wooden coffins all exactly
alike, bearing each one upon its lid a roughly painted cross
surrounded by a wreath. Thus were buried the monks of days long past.
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