| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: revelations, it was partly due to the skill with which she continued
to question her confiding partner from the moment when she found that
he was the brother of her scorned lover.
"And could you, without being grieved, see your brother selling muslin
and calico?" asked Emilie, at the end of the third figure of the
quadrille.
"How do you know that?" asked the attache. "Thank God, though I pour
out a flood of words, I have already acquired the art of not telling
more than I intend, like all the other diplomatic apprentices I know."
"You told me, I assure you."
Monsieur de Longueville looked at Mademoiselle de Fontaine with a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: principle is, there is the true ideal of friendship. Let me put the matter
thus: Suppose the case of a great treasure (this may be a son, who is more
precious to his father than all his other treasures); would not the father,
who values his son above all things, value other things also for the sake
of his son? I mean, for instance, if he knew that his son had drunk
hemlock, and the father thought that wine would save him, he would value
the wine?
He would.
And also the vessel which contains the wine?
Certainly.
But does he therefore value the three measures of wine, or the earthen
 Lysis |