| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: furniture consisted of an armchair, a table, a chair, and a wretched
bed-table. A cupboard in the wall held his clothes. The wall-paper was
horrible; evidently only a servant had ever been lodged there before
Marcas.
"What is to be seen?" asked the Doctor as I got down.
"Look for yourself," said I.
At nine next morning, Marcas was in bed. He had breakfasted off a
saveloy; we saw on a plate, with some crumbs of bread, the remains of
that too familiar delicacy. He was asleep; he did not wake till
eleven. He then set to work again on the copy he had begun the night
before, which was lying on the table.
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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 Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: Champcenetz; nay, such light-hearted inconstancy takes us back to the
festooned and ornate period of the old court of the Valois. In an age
as moral as the present, we are bound to regard audacity of this kind
sternly; still, at the same time that 'cornet of sugar-plums' may
serve to warn young girls of the perils of lingering where fancies,
more charming than chastened, come thickly from the first; on the rosy
flowery unguarded slopes, where trespasses ripen into errors full of
equivocal effervescence, into too palpitating issues. The anecdote
puts La Palferine's genius before you in all its vivacity and
completeness. He realizes Pascal's /entre-deux/, he comprehends the
whole scale between tenderness and pitilessness, and, like
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