| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: an opera-singer some day and capture the world with one's voice,
there is nothing to do but to study, study, sing, practise, even
though one's throat be parched, one's head a great ache, and
one's heart a nest of discouragement and sadness at what seems
the uselessness of it all. Annette had now a new incentive to
work; the fisherman had once praised her voice when she hummed a
barcarole on the sands, and he had insisted that there was power
in its rich notes. Though the fisherman had showed no cause why
he should be accepted as a musical critic, Annette had somehow
respected his judgment and been accordingly elated.
It was the night of the opening of the opera. There was the
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: I could not trust to my stupid Rene to bring news of your condition,
and therefore I have come myself."
"I am perfectly recovered," she replied, in a tone of emotion. "I
thank you, Monsieur du Bousquier," she added, after a slight pause,
and in a significant tone of voice, "for the trouble you have taken,
and for that which I gave you yesterday--"
She remembered having been in his arms, and that again seemed to her
an order from heaven. She had been seen for the first time by a man
with her laces cut, her treasures violently bursting from their
casket.
"I carried you with such joy that you seemed to me light."
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