| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: France a tardy success is no better than a fiasco. So far,
moreover, from adopting a policy of redemption, and looking for
new forces where God puts them, these petty great folk took a
dislike to any capacity that did not issue from their midst; and,
lastly, instead of growing young again, the Faubourg
Saint-Germain grew positively older.
Etiquette, not an institution of primary necessity, might have
been maintained if it had appeared only on state occasions, but
as it was, there was a daily wrangle over precedence; it ceased
to be a matter of art or court ceremonial, it became a question
of power. And if from the outset the Crown lacked an adviser
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: "Some widows can guard against the wounds their children
give them by turning their hearts to another husband
and beginning life again. But I always was a poor, weak,
one-idea'd creature--I had not the compass of heart nor
the enterprise for that. Just as forlorn and stupefied
as I was when my husband's spirit flew away I have sat
ever since--never attempting to mend matters at all.
I was comparatively a young woman then, and I might have
had another family by this time, and have been comforted
by them for the failure of this one son."
"It is more noble in you that you did not."
 Return of the Native |