| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: Where there is perfect love there is neither greed nor
impatience. He would have done his work calmly. He would have
won his way with his Committee instead of fighting and
quarrelling with it perpetually. . . .
"Flimsy creatures," he whispered. "Uncertain health.
Uncertain strength. A will that comes and goes. Moods of
baseness. Moods of utter beastliness. . . . Love like April
sunshine. April? . .."
He dozed and dreamt for a time of spring passing into a high
summer sunshine, into a continuing music, of love. He thought
of a world like some great playhouse in which players and
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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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: fortune, looking neither before nor after. Perhaps he counted,
moreover, on his power and his capacity of a man used to adventures,
to dominate this girl a few hours later and learn all her secrets.
"Well," said she, "let me arrange you as I would like."
Paquita went joyously and took from one of the two chests a robe of
red velvet, in which she dressed De Marsay, then adorned his head with
a woman's bonnet and wrapped a shawl round him. Abandoning herself to
these follies with a child's innocence, she laughed a convulsive
laugh, and resembled some bird flapping its wings; but he saw nothing
beyond.
If it be impossible to paint the unheard-of delights which these two
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
