| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: mechanically; then, trembling from head to foot, she said in a
hollow voice:
"And _I_ burned all his letters!--I have nothing of him left!--
Nothing! nothing!"
She struck her hand against her forehead.
"Madame----" I began.
She glanced at me in the convulsion of grief.
"I cut this from his head, this lock of his hair."
And I gave her that last imperishable token that had been a very
part of him she loved. Ah! if you had felt, as I felt then, her
burning tears falling on your hands, you would know what
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: were possible!
When the king heard that Baleka was sick he did not kill her outright,
because he loved her a little, but he sent for me, commanding me to
attend her, and when the child was born to cause its body to be
brought to him, according to custom, so that he might be sure that it
was dead. I bent to the earth before him, and went to do his bidding
with a heavy heart, for was not Baleka my sister? and would not her
child be of my own blood? Still, it must be so, for Chaka's whisper
was as the shout of other kings, and, if we dared to disobey, then our
lives and the lives of all in our kraals would answer for it. Better
that an infant should die than that we should become food for jackals.
 Nada the Lily |