| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: his whole being? Silent, self-contained, pious, exemplary in conduct,
he went his way over that vast tract of country named on the map of
the heart Love-without-Hope, the sublime and arid steppes of Desire.
Modeste had christened this grotesque little being her "Black Dwarf."
The nickname sent him to the pages of Walter Scott's novel, and he one
day said to Modeste: "Will you accept a rose against the evil day from
your mysterious dwarf?" Modeste instantly sent the soul of her adorer
to its humble mud-cabin with a terrible glance, such as young girls
bestow on the men who cannot please them. Butscha's conception of
himself was lowly, and, like the wife of his master, he had never been
out of Havre.
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: knees in the armchair and sobbed, while I heard a strange noise
of heavy footsteps and something knocking against the side of the
staircase.
They were carrying away Clochette's body.
WHO KNOWS?
My God! My God! I am going to write down at last what has
happened to me. But how can I? How dare I? The thing is so
bizarre, so inexplicable, so incomprehensible, so silly!
If I were not perfectly sure of what I have seen, sure that there
was not in my reasoning any defect, any error in my declarations,
any lacuna in the inflexible sequence of my observations, I
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