| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: shadow, looked like conspirators waiting the hour to strike a tyrant.
"Come in! come in!" cried the old man, beaming with happiness. "My
work is perfect; I can show it now with pride. Never shall painter,
brushes, colors, canvas, light, produce the rival of Catherine
Lescaut, the Beautiful Nut-girl."
Porbus and Poussin, seized with wild curiosity, rushed into the middle
of a vast atelier filled with dust, where everything lay in disorder,
and where they saw a few paintings hanging here and there upon the
walls. They stopped before the figure of a woman, life-sized and half
nude, which filled them with eager admiration.
"Do not look at that," said Frenhofer, "it is only a daub which I made
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.
And now, if e'er by chance I put
My fingers into glue
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Through the Looking-Glass |
