| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: desire to render my last moments less bitter and to ease my grief,
take back your daughter: be a Christian, a husband, and a father."
When he heard these words, Grandet would sit down by the bed with the
air of a man who sees the rain coming and quietly gets under the
shelter of a gateway till it is over. When these touching, tender, and
religious supplications had all been made, he would say,--
"You are rather pale to-day, my poor wife."
Absolute forgetfulness of his daughter seemed graven on his stony
brow, on his closed lips. He was unmoved by the tears which flowed
down the white cheeks of his unhappy wife as she listened to his
meaningless answers.
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: When every part a part of woe doth bear.
'Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear:
Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,
And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.
Her letter now is seal'd, and on it writ
'At Ardea to my lord with more than haste;'
The post attends, and she delivers it,
Charging the sour-fac'd groom to hie as fast
As lagging fowls before the northern blast.
Speed more than speed but dull and slow she deems:
Extremely still urgeth such extremes.
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