| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: asked him to dine with him that day, not at his own house, but at
a restaurant. At dessert Bianchon skilfully contrived to talk of
the mass, speaking of it as mummery and a farce.
"A farce," said Desplein, "which has cost Christendom more blood
than all Napoleon's battles and all Broussais' leeches. The mass
is a papal invention, not older than the sixth century, and
based on the Hoc est corpus. What floods of blood were shed to
establish the Fete-Dieu, the Festival of Corpus Christi--the
institution by which Rome established her triumph in the question
of the Real Presence, a schism which rent the Church during three
centuries! The wars of the Count of Toulouse against the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: little anxious.
"Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leak was
found gaining once more, there was in truth some small concern
manifested by several of her company; especially by Radney the mate.
He commanded the upper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted home anew,
and every way expanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose,
was as little of a coward, and as little inclined to any sort of
nervous apprehensiveness touching his own person as any fearless,
unthinking creature on land or on sea that you can conveniently
imagine, gentlemen. Therefore when he betrayed this solicitude about
the safety of the ship, some of the seamen declared that it was only
Moby Dick |
