| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: that he had made a very pretty description and that on the morrow
she would go and see for herself.
They mounted, accordingly, into a great barouche--a vehicle as to
which the Baroness found nothing to criticise but the price that
was asked for it and the fact that the coachman wore a straw hat.
(At Silberstadt Madame Munster had had liveries of yellow
and crimson.) They drove into the country, and the Baroness,
leaning far back and swaying her lace-fringed parasol,
looked to right and to left and surveyed the way-side objects.
After a while she pronounced them "affreux." Her brother
remarked that it was apparently a country in which the foreground
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: obtained them from any other source, or if they had been confided
to me, there exists no confessor more discreet than myself."
"Oh, I don't doubt that," replied D'Artagnan; "but it seems to me
that you are tolerably familiar with coats of arms--a certain
embroidered handkerchief, for instance, to which I owe the honor
of your acquaintance?"
This time Aramis was not angry, but assumed the most modest air
and replied in a friendly tone, "My dear friend, do not forget
that I wish to belong to the Church, and that I avoid all mundane
opportunities. The handkerchief you saw had not been given to
me, but it had been forgotten and left at my house by one of my
The Three Musketeers |
