| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: the water, and studying the mysteries of the sky. Lost in one of the
trances that were frequent to him, he traveled from sphere to sphere,
from vision to vision, listening for obscure rustlings and the voices
of angels, and believing that he heard them; seeing, or fancying that
he saw, a divine radiance in which he lost himself; striving to attain
the far-away goal, the source of all light, the fount of all harmony.
Presently the vast clamor of Paris, brought down on the current, was
hushed; lights were extinguished one by one in the houses; silence
spread over all; and the huge city slept like a tired giant.
Midnight struck. The least noise, the fall of a leaf, or the flight of
a jackdaw changing its perching-place among the pinnacles of Notre-
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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 Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: polished till it winked. I gave a cheer all by myself for Billy
the mule, but he never looked right or left.
The rain began to fall again, and for a while it was too misty
to see what the troops were doing. They had made a big half
circle across the plain, and were spreading out into a line. That
line grew and grew and grew till it was three-quarters of a mile
long from wing to wing--one solid wall of men, horses, and guns.
Then it came on straight toward the Viceroy and the Amir, and as
it got nearer the ground began to shake, like the deck of a
steamer when the engines are going fast.
Unless you have been there you cannot imagine what a
The Jungle Book |
