| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: the news that women flout you and ignore you, and not one loves you;
then, ah! then you will know the treasures of Louise's heart and love.
We are only rich when our wealth is buried so deep that all the world
might trample it under foot, unknowing. If you were handsome, I don't
suppose I should have looked at you twice, or discovered one of the
thousand reasons out of which my love sprang. True, we know no more of
these reasons than we know why it is the sun makes the flowers to
bloom, and ripens the fruit. Yet I could tell you of one reason very
dear to me.
The character, expression, and individuality that ennoble your face
are a sealed book to all but me. Mine is the power which transforms
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: "After centuries of oppression I have wrested my rights from the
grasp of the jealous gods. On earth I was the Poetess of Reform,
and sang to inattentive ears. Now for an eternity of honour and
glory."
But it was not to be so, and soon she was the unhappiest of
mortals, vainly desirous to wander again in gloom by the infernal
lakes. For Jove had not bedeviled her ears, and she heard from the
lips of each blessed Shade an incessant flow of quotation from his
own works. Moreover, she was denied the happiness of repeating her
poems. She could not recall a line of them, for Jove had decreed
that the memory of them abide in Pluto's painful domain, as a part
Fantastic Fables |
