| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: partiality of man's good and man's evil. I know no one whom
I less admire than Goethe; he seems a very epitome of the
sins of genius, breaking open the doors of private life, and
wantonly wounding friends, in that crowning offence of
WERTHER, and in his own character a mere pen-and-ink
Napoleon, conscious of the rights and duties of superior
talents as a Spanish inquisitor was conscious of the rights
and duties of his office. And yet in his fine devotion to
his art, in his honest and serviceable friendship for
Schiller, what lessons are contained! Biography, usually so
false to its office, does here for once perform for us some
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: thirst in his parched throat.
"Well," said Mme. de Nucingen when he came back in evening dress,
"how is my father?"
"Very dangerously ill," he answered; "if you will grant me a
proof of your affections, we will just go in to see him on the
way."
"Very well," she said. "Yes, but afterwards. Dear Eugene, do be
nice, and don't preach to me. Come."
They set out. Eugene said nothing for a while.
"What is it now?" she asked.
"I can hear the death-rattle in your father's throat," he said
Father Goriot |
