| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: would take far too much space in this brief history.
"What!" he said to himself, "do the aunt and uncle think I might be
loved? Then my happiness only depends on my own audacity! But Adam--"
Ideal love and desire clashed with gratitude and friendship, all
equally powerful, and, for a moment, love prevailed. The lover would
have his day. Paz became brilliant, he tried to please, he told the
story of the Polish insurrection in noble words, being questioned
about it by the diplomatist. By the end of dinner Paz saw Clementine
hanging upon his lips and regarding him as a hero, forgetting that
Adam too, after sacrificing a third of his vast fortune, had been an
exile. At nine o'clock, after coffee had been served, Madame de Serizy
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: power and freedom I felt in myself. When the
window opens I know exactly how it would
feel to be out there. But that garden is closed
to me. How is it, I ask myself, that everything
can be so different with me when nothing here
has changed? I am in my own house, in my own study, in the
midst of all these quiet streets where my friends live.
They are all safe and at peace with themselves.
But I am never at peace. I feel always on the edge
of danger and change.
I keep remembering locoed horses I used
 Alexander's Bridge |