| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: patriotism, spreads man's selfishness in wider circles" (fire
stirred, dish put down before it).
"Were you born in Switzerland?"
"I should think so, or else why should I call it my country?"
"And where did you get your English features and figure?"
"I am English, too; half the blood in my veins is English; thus I
have a right to a double power of patriotism, possessing an
interest in two noble, free, and fortunate countries."
"You had an English mother?"
"Yes, yes; and you, I suppose, had a mother from the moon or from
Utopia, since not a nation in Europe has a claim on your
The Professor |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: of regimen, the same regularity of occupation. His friends knew that
up to the present time woman had been to him no more than an always
dreaded circumstance; he had observed her too much not to fear her;
but by dint of studying her he had ceased to understand her,--like, in
this, to those deep strategists who are always beaten on unexpected
ground, where their scientific axioms are either modified or
contradicted. In character he still remains a simple-hearted child,
all the while proving himself an observer of the first rank. This
contrast, apparently impossible, is explainable to those who know how
to measure the depths which separate faculties from feelings; the
former proceed from the head, the latter from the heart. A man can be
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