| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: from his eyes and rolled down his hollow cheeks; then, with strange
exclamations of grief, he locked up the room and returned to the king.
Louis XI. was struck with the expression of sorrow on the moistened
features of his old friend.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"Ah! sire, misfortunes never come singly. My sister is dead. She
precedes me there below," he said, pointing to the floor with a
dreadful gesture.
"Enough!" cried Louis XI., who did not like to hear of death.
"I make you my heir. I care for nothing now. Here are my keys. Hang
me, if that's your good pleasure. Take all, ransack the house; it is
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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 Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: to Madame Vernier. "Would you believe it, the good-man insists on
watching his two casks of wine. He has worried me so this whole day,
that I had to show him two full puncheons. Our neighbor, Pierre
Champlain, fortunately had two which he had not sold. I asked him to
kindly let me have them rolled into our cellar; and oh, dear! now that
the good-man has seen them he insists on bottling them off himself!"
Madame Vernier had related the poor woman's trouble to her husband
just before the entrance of Gaudissart, and at the first words of the
famous traveller Vernier determined that he should be made to grapple
with Margaritis.
"Monsieur," said the ex-dyer, as soon as the illustrious Gaudissart
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