| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: No one noticed her in the car. Passengers on the Claiborne line
are too much accustomed to frail little black-robed women with
big, black bundles; it is one of the city's most pitiful sights.
She leaned her head out of the window to catch a glimpse of the
oleanders on Bayou Road, when her attention was caught by a
conversation in the car.
"Yes, it's too bad for Neale, and lately married too," said the
elder man. "I can't see what he is to do."
Neale! She pricked up her ears. That was the name of the groom
in the Jesuit Church.
"How did it happen?" languidly inquired the younger. He was a
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: Poiret [puzzled]. "Why, no."
Bixiou. "But he is paid by the government to do work, to mount guard
and show off at reviews. You may perhaps tell me that he longs to get
out of his place,--that he works too hard and fingers too little
metal, except that of his musket."
Poiret [his eyes wide open]. "Monsieur, a government clerk is,
logically speaking, a man who needs the salary to maintain himself,
and is not free to get out of his place; for he doesn't know how to do
anything but copy papers."
Bixiou. "Ah! now we are coming to a conclusion. So the bureau is the
clerk's shell, husk, pod. No clerk without a bureau, no bureau without
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