| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: pellitory. The stone steps are disjointed; the bell-cord is rotten;
the gutter-spouts broken. What fire from heaven could have fallen
there? By what decree has salt been sown on this dwelling? Has God
been mocked here? Or was France betrayed? These are the questions we
ask ourselves. Reptiles crawl over it, but give no reply. This empty
and deserted house is a vast enigma of which the answer is known to
none.
"It was formerly a little domain, held in fief, and is known as La
Grande Breteche. During my stay at Vendome, where Despleins had left
me in charge of a rich patient, the sight of this strange dwelling
became one of my keenest pleasures. Was it not far better than a ruin?
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: discovered that the baby which Anderssen had placed in her
arms that night upon the Kincaid was not her own, and it had
been a constant and gnawing source of happiness to her to
dream the whole fantasy through in its every detail.
No, the Russian must never know that this was not her baby.
She realized that her position was hopeless--with Anderssen
and her husband dead there was no one in all the world with
a desire to succour her who knew where she might be found.
Rokoff's threat, she realized, was no idle one. That he
would do, or attempt to do, all that he had promised, she
was perfectly sure; but at the worst it meant but a little earlier
The Beasts of Tarzan |
