| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: the workshop, lighted at either end, and dark in the middle; the walls
covered with handbills and begrimed by friction of all the workmen who
had rubbed past them for thirty years; the cobweb of cordage across
the ceiling, the stacks of paper, the old-fashioned presses, the pile
of slabs for weighting the damp sheets, the rows of cases, and the two
dens in the far corners where the master printer and foreman sat--and
you will have some idea of the life led by the two friends.
One day early in May, 1821, David and Lucien were standing together by
the window that looked into the yard. It was nearly two o'clock, and
the four or five men were going out to dinner. David waited until the
apprentice had shut the street door with the bell fastened to it; then
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: of this author.
To say that the INNOCENTS ABROAD is a curious book, would be to
use the faintest language--would be to speak of the Matterhorn
as a neat elevation or of Niagara as being "nice" or "pretty."
"Curious" is too tame a word wherewith to describe the imposing insanity
of this work. There is no word that is large enough or long enough.
Let us, therefore, photograph a passing glimpse of book and author,
and trust the rest to the reader. Let the cultivated English student
of human nature picture to himself this Mark Twain as a person capable
of doing the following-described things--and not only doing them,
but with incredible innocence PRINTING THEM calmly and tranquilly
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