| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: or drew out his last trump.
Her religious faith drove Modeste for a time into a singular track of
thought. She imagined that if she became sinless (speaking
ecclesiastically) she would attain to such a condition of sanctity
that God would hear her and accomplish her desires. "Faith," she
thought, "can move mountains; Christ has said so. The Saviour led his
apostle upon the waters of the lake Tiberias; and I, all I ask of God
is a husband to love me; that is easier than walking upon the sea."
She fasted through the next Lent, and did not commit a single sin;
then she said to herself that on a certain day coming out of church
she should meet a handsome young man who was worthy of her, whom her
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: Jacques had bought. It was painted white, and it had a narrow front
porch, with a scroll-saw fringe around the edge of it; and there was
a little garden fenced in with white palings, in which Sweet
Williams and pansies and blue lupines and pink bleeding-hearts were
planted.
The wedding was at the Sportsmen's Retreat, and Jacques was there,
of course. There was nothing of the disconsolate lover about him.
The noun he might have confessed to, in a confidential moment of
intercourse with his violin; but the adjective was not in his line.
The strongest impulse in his nature was to be a giver of
entertaininent, a source of joy in others, a recognized element of
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