| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: planks, and I was fast asleep before my head touched the pillow.
In the morning my tutor (he was a student of the Cracow
University) woke me up early, and as we were dressing remarked:
"There seems to be a lot of people staying in this hotel. I have
heard a noise of talking up till eleven o'clock." This statement
surprised me; I had heard no noise whatever, having slept like a
top.
We went down-stairs into the long and narrow dining-room with its
long and narrow table. There were two rows of plates on it. At
one of the many curtained windows stood a tall, bony man with a
bald head set off by a bunch of black hair above each ear, and
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: strings till she was eighteen, trussed for religious practices,
seasoned by Vandenesse, and cooked to a point by marriage. At the
third bottle of champagne, Raoul unbosomed himself as he had never
done before in his life.
"My friends," he said, "you know my relations with Florine; you also
know my life, and you will not be surprised to hear me say that I am
absolutely ignorant of what a countess's love may be like. I have
often felt mortified that I, a poet, could not give myself a Beatrice,
a Laura, except in poetry. A pure and noble woman is like an unstained
conscience,--she represents us to ourselves under a noble form.
Elsewhere we may soil ourselves, but with her we are always proud,
|
