| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: the ceremony.
High mass was celebrated with the sombre magnificence of funeral
services. Beside the ministers in ordinary of Saint-Roch, thirteen
priests from other parishes were present. Perhaps never did the /Dies
irae/ produce upon Christians, assembled by chance, by curiosity, and
thirsting for emotions, an effect so profound, so nervously glacial as
that now caused by this hymn when the eight voices of the precentors,
accompanied by the voices of the priests and the choir-boys, intoned
it alternately. From the six lateral chapels twelve other childish
voices rose shrilly in grief, mingling with the choir voices
lamentably. From all parts of the church this mourning issued; cries
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: vigorously peppered it and salted it. He always peppered and salted his meat,
and vigorously, before tasting it.
Paul and he took up the spring-like quality of the spring, the virtues of the
electric cigar-lighter, and the action of the New York State Assembly. It was
not till Babbitt was thick and disconsolate with mutton grease that he flung
out:
"I wound up a nice little deal with Conrad Lyte this morning that put five
hundred good round plunks in my pocket. Pretty nice--pretty nice! And yet--I
don't know what's the matter with me to-day. Maybe it's an attack of spring
fever, or staying up too late at Verg Gunch's, or maybe it's just the winter's
work piling up, but I've felt kind of down in the mouth all day long. Course
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