| 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: these drawings, consisting chiefly of profiles. M. de
Beaufort did not venture to draw the cardinal's fat face.
The duke thanked Monsieur de Chavigny for having, as he
said, cleaned his drawing-paper for him; he then divided the
walls of his room into compartments and dedicated each of
these compartments to some incident in Mazarin's life. In
one was depicted the "Illustrious Coxcomb" receiving a
shower of blows from Cardinal Bentivoglio, whose servant he
had been; another, the "Illustrious Mazarin" acting the part
of Ignatius Loyola in a tragedy of that name; a third, the
"Illustrious Mazarin" stealing the portfolio of prime
Twenty Years After |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: she seemed to know all that we knew, and more too, of his people and
his past life. He was white and ashy gray, trying now and again to
break into the torrent of her words; and we, noting how lovely she
was and what a criminal he looked, esteemed him a beast of the worst
kind. We felt sorry for him, though.
I shall never forget the indictment of the Senior Subaltern by his
wife. Nor will he. It was so sudden, rushing out of the dark,
unannounced, into our dull lives. The Captains' wives stood back;
but their eyes were alight, and you could see that they had already
convicted and sentenced the Senior Subaltern. The Colonel seemed
five years older. One Major was shading his eyes with his hand and
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