| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: out that the experiment in aere publico was not meant to last for more
than seven, five, or even three years, so that shareholders would not
have long to wait for the catastrophe. It was in the childhood of the
art. Promoters did not even publish the gigantic prospectuses with
which they stimulate the imagination, and at the same time make
demands for money of all and sundry."
"That only comes when nobody wishes to part with money," said Couture.
"In short, there was no competition in investments," continued Bixiou.
"Paper-mache manufacturers, cotton printers, zinc-rollers, theatres,
and newspapers as yet did not hurl themselves like hunting dogs upon
their quarry--the expiring shareholder. 'Nice things in shares,' as
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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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: 'twas cold, waitin' to hear all about it as I come up the field.
Lord, how I think o' all them little things!"
"This was what she called the best room; in this way," he said
presently, laying his knitting on the table, and leading the way
across the front entry and unlocking a door, which he threw open
with an air of pride. The best room seemed to me a much sadder and
more empty place than the kitchen; its conventionalities lacked the
simple perfection of the humbler room and failed on the side of
poor ambition; it was only when one remembered what patient saving,
and what high respect for society in the abstract go to such
furnishing that the little parlor was interesting at all. I could
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