| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott: upon whose snow-white leaves her tears lay shining.
Clearer and brighter grew the radiant light, till the evil spirits
turned away to the dark shadow of the wall, and left the child alone.
The light and perfume of the flower seemed to bring new strength
to Annie, and she rose up, saying, as she bent to kiss the blossom
on her breast, "Dear flower, help and guide me now, and I will listen
to your voice, and cheerfully obey my faithful fairy bell."
Then in her dream she felt how hard the spirits tried to tempt
and trouble her, and how, but for her flower, they would have led
her back, and made all dark and dreary as before. Long and hard
she struggled, and tears often fell; but after each new trial,
Flower Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: allowance. In short, at that time, I breakfasted off a roll which
the baker in the Rue du Petit-Lion sold me cheap because it was
left from yesterday or the day before, and I crumbled it into
milk; thus my morning meal cost me but two sous. I dined only
every other day in a boarding-house where the meal cost me
sixteen sous. You know as well as I what care I must have taken
of my clothes and shoes. I hardly know whether in later life we
feel grief so deep when a colleague plays us false as we have
known, you and I, on detecting the mocking smile of a gaping seam
in a shoe, or hearing the armhole of a coat split, I drank
nothing but water; I regarded a cafe with distant respect.
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