| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: considers evil and what I consider my sacred duty before God."
As every one knows, neither this challenge nor the others that
followed it led to any result, and the arrests and deportations of
those associated with him still went on.
My father felt himself morally responsible toward all those
who suffered on his account, and every year new burdens were laid
on his conscience.
MASHA'S DEATH
As I reach the description of the last days of my father's life, I
must once more make it clear that what I write is based only on the
personal impressions I received in my periodical visits to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: of his coat-tails. The smiles of the two young men, on whom these
signs of an honorable indigence were not lost, were so many fresh
wounds to the lad's vanity.
"The first place was engaged for Oscar," said the mother to Pierrotin.
"Take the back seat," she said to the boy, looking fondly at him with
a loving smile.
Oh! how Oscar regretted that trouble and sorrow had destroyed his
mother's beauty, and that poverty and self-sacrifice prevented her
from being better dressed! One of the young men, the one who wore top-
boots and spurs, nudged the other to make him take notice of Oscar's
mother, and the other twirled his moustache with a gesture which
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