| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: be doubly thankful that Monsieur le marquis met me; he affords me an
opportunity to offer you excuses which might be full of danger were
you not kindness itself."
The marquise looked at the young man with an air of some surprise, but
she answered with dignity:--
"Monsieur, silence on your part will be the best excuse. As for me, I
promise you entire forgetfulness, and the pardon which you scarcely
deserve."
"Madame," said Rastignac, hastily, "pardon is not needed where there
was no offence. The letter," he added, in a low voice, "which you
received, and which you must have thought extremely unbecoming, was
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: tribal or family wealth on its training or education, its value as an adult
enormously outweighs, both to the state and the male, the trouble and
expense of rearing it, which falls almost entirely on the individual woman
who bears it. The man who has twenty children to become warriors and
labourers is by so much the richer and the more powerful than he who has
but one; while the state whose women are prolific and labour for and rear
their children stands so far insured against destruction. Incessant and
persistent child-bearing is thus truly the highest duty and the most
socially esteemed occupation of the primitive woman, equalling fully in
social importance the labour of the man as hunter and warrior.
Even under those conditions of civilisation which have existed in the
|
