| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: happiness, dear angel!'
" 'If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.'
" 'Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my
whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be
damned for having kissed you but once----'
"And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella's efforts to avoid that
passionate caress.
" 'Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my
name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.'
" 'Suppose I were not a woman?' queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a
sweet, silvery voice.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: From heaven, and from its fires; and first they feign
That fire will turn into the winds of air,
Next, that from air the rain begotten is,
And earth created out of rain, and then
That all, reversely, are returned from earth-
The moisture first, then air thereafter heat-
And that these same ne'er cease in interchange,
To go their ways from heaven to earth, from earth
Unto the stars of the aethereal world-
Which in no wise at all the germs can do.
Since an immutable somewhat still must be,
Of The Nature of Things |
