| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: like a great child, who only wants humoring. Before the
sleeping king they will be mute, gentle and timid as lambs."
"Go, Laporte," said the queen.
The young king approached his mother and said, "Why do as
these people ask?"
"It must be so, my son," said Anne of Austria.
"But if they say, `it must be' to me, am I no longer king?"
The queen remained silent.
"Sire," said D'Artagnan, "will your majesty permit me to ask
you a question?"
Louis XIV. turned around, astonished that any one should
Twenty Years After |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: his inward thoughts, as if they were people meeting and nodding to him--
smiled with that singularly beautiful irradiation which is seen
to spread on young faces at the inception of some glorious idea,
as if a supernatural lamp were held inside their transparent natures,
giving rise to the flattering fancy that heaven lies about them then.
He honestly performed his promise to the man of many cures,
in whom he now sincerely believed, walking miles hither and thither
among the surrounding hamlets as the Physician's agent in advance.
On the evening appointed he stood motionless on the plateau,
at the place where he had parted from Vilbert, and there
awaited his approach. The road-physician was fairly up
Jude the Obscure |
