| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: Monsieur Birotteau listened with acceptance to Mademoiselle Gamard
when she told him that a man who ate an egg every morning would die in
a year, and that facts proved it; that a roll of light bread eaten
without drinking for several days together would cure sciatica; that
all the workmen who assisted in pulling down the Abbey Saint-Martin
had died in six months; that a certain prefect, under orders from
Bonaparte, had done his best to damage the towers of Saint-Gatien,--
with a hundred other absurd tales.
But on this occasion poor Birotteau felt he was tongue-tied, and he
resigned himself to eat a meal without engaging in conversation. After
a while, however, the thought crossed his mind that silence was
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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 Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: that he did goes far in proof of the deep culture of the Athenian
public. Further confirmation is to be found in the fact that such
tragedies as the Antigone, the Oidipous, and the Prometheus were
written to suit the popular taste of the time; not to be read by
literary people, or to be performed before select audiences such
as in our day listen to Ristori or Janauschek, but to hold
spell-bound that vast concourse of all kinds of people which
assembled at the Dionysiac festivals.
Still further proof is furnished by the exquisite literary
perfection of Greek writings. One of the common arguments in
favour of the study of Greek at the present day is based upon the
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
