| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: "True," said the other.
They approached the body.
"A handsome girl! We had better go and make our statement."
And the two dredgers, after covering the body with their jackets, went
to the house of the village mayor, who was much embarrassed at having
to make out the legal papers necessitated by this discovery.
The news of this event spread with the telegraphic rapidity peculiar
to regions where social communications have no distractions, where
gossip, scandal, calumny, in short, the social tale which feasts the
world has no break of continuity from one boundary to another. Before
long, persons arriving at the mayor's office released him from all
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: it lies beyond our present purpose to expatiate. It is quite evident
that woman has had no voice in the framing of such a chronology.
One would hardly imagine that man had either, so astronomic is the
system. A communistic age is however but an unavoidable detail of
the general scheme whose most suggestive feature consists in the
subordination of the actual birthday of the individual to the
fictitious birthday of the community. For it is not so much the
want of commemoration shown the subject as the character of the
commemoration which is significant. Some slight notice is indeed
paid to birthdays during early childhood, but even then their
observance is quite secondary in importance to that of the great
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