| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: "Do you think it desirable to establish a foreign house--in this quiet place?"
"You speak," said Acton, laughing, "as if it were a question
of the poor Baroness opening a wine-shop or a gaming-table."
"It would be too lovely!" Gertrude declared again, laying her hand
on the back of her father's chair.
"That she should open a gaming-table?" Charlotte asked,
with great gravity.
Gertrude looked at her a moment, and then, "Yes, Charlotte,"
she said, simply.
"Gertrude is growing pert," Clifford Wentworth observed, with his humorous
young growl. "That comes of associating with foreigners."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: for a short interval. Kitchen-gardeners carrying their produce to
market continue the stir of carriages returning from theatres and
balls. Near the middle of this sustained pause in the grand symphony
of Parisian uproar, which occurs about one o'clock in the morning, the
wife of Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, a perfumer established near the
Place Vendome, was startled from her sleep by a frightful dream. She
had seen her double. She had appeared to herself clothed in rags,
turning with a shrivelled, withered hand the latch of her own shop-
door, seeming to be at the threshold, yet at the same time seated in
her armchair behind the counter. She was asking alms of herself, and
heard herself speaking from the doorway and also from her seat at the
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
