| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: shaped huts, with the shells on the threshold and the hanging net, and
the patricians their large halls filled with bluish shadows, where at
the most indolent hour of the day they used to rest listening to the
vague noise of the streets mingled with the rustling of the leaves as
they stirred in their gardens;--to go deeper into the thought of this,
and to enjoy it more, they would half close their eyelids, only to be
roused by the shock of a wound. Every minute there was some
engagement, some fresh alarm; the towers were burning, the Eaters of
Uncleanness were leaping across the palisades; their hands would be
struck off with axes; others would hasten up; an iron hail would fall
upon the tents. Galleries of rushen hurdles were raised as a
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: Africa, by some other ship that he had sent thither, and which, it
seems, had made a better voyage than I. He sent me also five
chests of excellent sweetmeats, and a hundred pieces of gold
uncoined, not quite so large as moidores. By the same fleet my two
merchant-trustees shipped me one thousand two hundred chests of
sugar, eight hundred rolls of tobacco, and the rest of the whole
account in gold.
I might well say now, indeed, that the latter end of Job was better
than the beginning. It is impossible to express the flutterings of
my very heart when I found all my wealth about me; for as the
Brazil ships come all in fleets, the same ships which brought my
Robinson Crusoe |
