| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: next sign of habitation.
This was a good resolution, but Turkestan is so thinly settled
that before the boy could plan out a course of action he had passed
the barren mountain range of Thian-Shan as nimbly as an acrobat
leaps a jumping-bar.
"This won't do at all!" he exclaimed, earnestly. "The traveling
machine seems to be running away with me, and I'm missing no end of
sights by scooting along up here in the clouds."
He turned the indicator to zero, and was relieved to find it obey with
customary quickness. In a few moments he had slowed up and stopped,
when he found himself suspended above another stretch of sandy plain.
The Master Key |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: Birotteau, there remains seventy-three thousand, which, joined to
these sixty thousand paid for the relinquishment of the lease, gives
/you/ one hundred and thirty-three thousand francs."
Madame Cesar listened with fluctuations of joy which made her tremble
so violently that Popinot could hear the beating of her heart.
"Well, I have always considered Monsieur Birotteau as my partner," he
went on; "we can use this sum to pay his creditors in full. Add the
twenty-eight thousand you have saved and placed in our uncle
Pillerault's hands, and we have one hundred and sixty-one thousand
francs. Our uncle will not refuse his receipt for his own claim of
twenty-five thousand. No human power can deprive me of the right of
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
