| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: Master of Appeals, Officer of the Legion of Honor, and Royal
Commissioner, was but a mole throwing up its little hills round and
round a vineyard! Then some lamentations were poured into the heart of
the Public Prosecutor, of the Sous-prefet, even of Monsieur Gravier,
and they all increased in their devotion to this sublime victim; for,
like all women, she never mentioned her speculative schemes, and--
again like all women--finding such speculation vain, she ceased to
speculate.
Dinah, tossed by mental storms, was still undecided when, in the
autumn of 1827, the news was told of the purchase by the Baron de la
Baudraye of the estate of Anzy. Then the little old man showed an
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: fish.
VII
America's Defenceless Coasts
JUST suppose that America were twenty days distant from England.
Then a man could study its customs with undivided soul; but being
so very near next door, he goes about the land with one eye on
the smoke of the flesh-pots of the old country across the seas,
while with the other he squints biliously and prejudicially at
the alien.
I can lay my hand upon my sacred heart and affirm that up to
to-day I have never taken three consecutive trips by rail without
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