| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: you of something which happened to La Palferine. There is a sort of
relieving officer on the civil list. This functionary one day
discovered that La Palferine was in dire distress, drew up a report,
no doubt, and brought the descendant of the Rusticolis fifty francs by
way of alms. La Palferine received the visitor with perfect courtesy,
and talked of various persons at court.
" 'Is it true,' he asked, 'that Mlle. d'Orleans contributes such and
such a sum to this benevolent scheme started by her nephew? If so, it
is very gracious of her.'
"Now La Palferine had a servant, a little Savoyard, aged ten, who
waited on him without wages. La Palferine called him Father Anchises,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: less alike.
But I must explain my meaning more fully. I believe that the arrangement
of the groups within each class, in due subordination and relation to the
other groups, must be strictly genealogical in order to be natural; but
that the amount of difference in the several branches or groups, though
allied in the same degree in blood to their common progenitor, may differ
greatly, being due to the different degrees of modification which they have
undergone; and this is expressed by the forms being ranked under different
genera, families, sections, or orders. The reader will best understand
what is meant, if he will take the trouble of referring to the diagram in
the fourth chapter. We will suppose the letters A to L to represent allied
 On the Origin of Species |