| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: result for the poor child, brought the two celibates back to the old
beaten track of their shop-keeping habits, from which their removal to
Provins had parted them, and in which their natures were now to expand
and flourish. Accustomed in the old days to rule and to make
inquisitions, to order about and reprove their clerks sharply, Rogron
and his sister had actually suffered for want of victims. Little minds
need to practise despotism to relieve their nerves, just as great
souls thirst for equality in friendship to exercise their hearts.
Narrow natures expand by persecuting as much as others through
beneficence; they prove their power over their fellows by cruel
tyranny as others do by loving kindness; they simply go the way their
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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 Symposium by Xenophon: to one person only, or can make them pleasing to a number?[95]
[95] Or, "to the many." The question is ambiguous. {e} = "an" or
"quam."
The company was here divided; the one half answered, "Yes, of course,
the largest number," whilst the others still maintained, "Without a
doubt."
And Socrates, remarking, "That proposition is agreed to also," thus
proceeded: And if further he were able to make them pleasing to the
whole community, should we not have found in this accomplished person
an arch-go-between?
Clearly so (they answered with one voice).
 The Symposium |