| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: make-up, and as she passed you caught the oversweet breath of a
certain heavy scent. Then, too, her diamond eardrops would have
made any woman's features look hard; but her plump face, in spite
of its heaviness, wore an expression of good-humored
intelligence, and her eyeglasses gave her somehow a look of
respectability. We do not associate vice with eyeglasses. So in
a large city she would have passed for a well-dressed,
prosperous, comfortable wife and mother who was in danger of
losing her figure from an overabundance of good living; but with
us she was a town character, like Old Man Givins, the drunkard,
or the weak-minded Binns girl. When she passed the drug- store
One Basket |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: deep voice, pressing violently on his heart. "Go, leave my house,
unhappy girl," he added, after a moment's silence. "Go, and never come
into my sight again."
So saying, he took Ginevra by the arm to the gate of the house and
silently put her out.
"Luigi!" cried Ginevra, entering the humble lodging of her lover,--"my
Luigi, we have no other fortune than our love."
"Then am I richer than the kings of the earth!" he cried.
"My father and my mother have cast me off," she said, in deepest
sadness.
"I will love you in place of them."
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