The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: thousand livres. He does not pay me and I sell the sugars
for thirteen hundred livres. He learns this and claims a
hundred crowns. Ma foi! I refused, pretending that I could
not sell them for more than nine hundred livres. He accused
me of usury. I begged him to repeat that word to me behind
the boulevards. He was an old guard, and he came: and I
passed your sword through his left thigh."
"Tu dieu! what a pretty sort of banker you make!" said
D'Artagnan.
"For above thirteen per cent. I fight," replied Planchet;
"that is my character."
 Ten Years Later |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: so exquisite in its ivory and green perfection as to be fit for a
bride's bouquet; there are apples so flawless that if the garden of
Eden grew any as perfect it is small wonder that Eve fell for them.
There are fresh mushrooms, and jumbo cocoanuts, and green almonds;
costly things in beds of cotton nestle next to strange and
marvelous things in tissue, wrappings. Oh, that window is no place
for the hungry, the dissatisfied, or the man out of a job. When
the air is filled with snow there is that in the sight of
muskmelons which incites crime.
Queerly enough, the gazers before that window foot up the
same, year in, and year out, something after this fashion:
 Buttered Side Down |