| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: as he came out of the palace; then instantly and reassuringly it
had swept away. But while they were still in the palace gardens
another found them and looked at them.
'They see us,' cried the king.
'They make nothing of us,' said Pestovitch.
The king glanced up and met a calm, round eye of light, that
seemed to wink at him and vanish, leaving him blinded....
The three men went on their way. Near the little gate in the
garden railings that Pestovitch had caused to be unlocked, the
king paused under the shadow of an flex and looked back at the
place. It was very high and narrow, a twentieth-century rendering
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: Desroches resumed.
"Since the firm bought up Maxime's debts, Cerizet's likeness to a
bailiff's officer grew more and more striking, and one morning after
seven fruitless attempts he succeeded in penetrating into the Count's
presence. Suzon, the old man-servant, albeit he was by no means in his
novitiate, at last mistook the visitor for a petitioner, come to
propose a thousand crowns if Maxime would obtain a license to sell
postage stamps for a young lady. Suzon, without the slightest
suspicion of the little scamp, a thoroughbred Paris street-boy into
whom prudence had been rubbed by repeated personal experience of the
police-courts, induced his master to receive him. Can you see the man
|
