| 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: "There's a method in my madness; there's none in yours."
"Your method is to squeeze the sap out of creation and make
manure of the refuse, by way of turning it to what you call use."
"You cannot reason at all," said Hunsden; "there is no logic in
you."
"Better to be without logic than without feeling," retorted
Frances, who was now passing backwards and forwards from her
cupboard to the table, intent, if not on hospitable thoughts, at
least on hospitable deeds, for she was laying the cloth, and
putting plates, knives and forks thereon.
"Is that a hit at me, mademoiselle? Do you suppose I am without
The Professor |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: teach him oaths. Felicite, whom his manner alarmed, put Loulou in the
kitchen, took off his chain and let him walk all over the house.
When he went downstairs, he rested his beak on the steps, lifted his
right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that such
feats would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to eat.
There was a small growth under his tongue like those chickens are
sometimes afflicted with. Felicite pulled it off with her nails and
cured him. One day, Paul was imprudent enough to blow the smoke of his
cigar in his face; another time, Madame Lormeau was teasing him with
the tip of her umbrella and he swallowed the tip. Finally he got lost.
She had put him on the grass to cool him and went away only for a
A Simple Soul |
