| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: "You will tell me all about it later on, my friend," I said to
him; "you are not strong enough yet."
"It is a warm evening, I have eaten my ration of chicken," he
said to me, smiling; "I have no fever, we have nothing to do, I
will tell it to you now."
"Since you really wish it, I will listen."
This is what he told me, and I have scarcely changed a word of
the touching story.
Yes (Armand went on, letting his head sink back on the chair),
yes, it was just such an evening as this. I had spent the day in
the country with one of my friends, Gaston R--. We returned to
Camille |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: give him his due funeral rites? So, then, you would all be on the
side of mad Achilles, who knows neither right nor ruth? He is
like some savage lion that in the pride of his great strength and
daring springs upon men's flocks and gorges on them. Even so has
Achilles flung aside all pity, and all that conscience which at
once so greatly banes yet greatly boons him that will heed it.
man may lose one far dearer than Achilles has lost--a son, it may
be, or a brother born from his own mother's womb; yet when he has
mourned him and wept over him he will let him bide, for it takes
much sorrow to kill a man; whereas Achilles, now that he has
slain noble Hector, drags him behind his chariot round the tomb
The Iliad |
