| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: Soon the nightingale was silent, but Savka did not come back.
Agafya got up, took a few steps uneasily, and sat down again.
"What is he doing?" she could not refrain from saying. "The
train's not coming in to-morrow! I shall have to go away
directly."
"Savka," I shouted. "Savka."
I was not answered even by an echo. Agafya moved uneasily and sat
down again.
"It's time I was going," she said in an agitated voice. "The
train will be here directly! I know when the trains come in."
The poor woman was not mistaken. Before a quarter of an hour had
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: mother of a family. A poet is the saddest conquest that a girl can
make; he is full of vanity, full of angles that will sharply wound
a woman's proper pride, and kill a tenderness which has no
experience of life. The wife of a poet should love him long before
she marries him; she must train herself to the charity of angels,
to their forbearance, to all the virtues of motherhood. Such
qualities, mademoiselle, are but germs in a young girl.
Hear the whole truth,--do I not owe it to you in return for your
intoxicating flattery? If it is a glorious thing to marry a great
renown, remember also that you must soon discover a superior man
to be, in all that makes a man, like other men. He therefore
Modeste Mignon |
