| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: bold.
When the countess had succeeded in rising to her seat without
awakening her keeper, she made a gesture of childlike joy which
revealed the touching naivete of her nature. But the half-formed smile
on her burning lips was quickly suppressed; a thought came to darken
that pure brow, and her long blue eyes resumed their sad expression.
She gave a sigh and again laid her hands, not without precaution, on
the fatal conjugal pillow. Then--as if for the first time since her
marriage she found herself free in thought and action--she looked at
the things around her, stretching out her neck with little darting
motions like those of a bird in its cage. Seeing her thus, it was easy
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: the upper hand, and drives Art out into the wilderness. That is
the true decadence, and it is from this that we are now suffering.
'Take the case of the English drama. At first in the hands of the
monks Dramatic Art was abstract, decorative and mythological. Then
she enlisted Life in her service, and using some of life's external
forms, she created an entirely new race of beings, whose sorrows
were more terrible than any sorrow man has ever felt, whose joys
were keener than lover's joys, who had the rage of the Titans and
the calm of the gods, who had monstrous and marvellous sins,
monstrous and marvellous virtues. To them she gave a language
different from that of actual use, a language full of resonant
|