| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: been very hard, very solitary for him; and yet, perhaps, the pallor of
his face expressed a stoicism gathered from some new sense of self-
respect. Perhaps he felt that his remorse had purified him, and
believed that he had blotted out his fault by his anguish and his
shame. He now walked with a firm step, and since the previous evening
he had washed away the blood with which he was, involuntarily,
stained.
"My hands must have dabbled in it while I slept, for I am always a
restless sleeper," he had said to me in tones of horrible despair.
I learned that he was on his way to appear before the council of war.
The division was to march on the following morning, and the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: For all expedients tried and travail borne
By man and beast in turning oft the soil,
Do greedy goose and Strymon-haunting cranes
And succory's bitter fibres cease to harm,
Or shade not injure. The great Sire himself
No easy road to husbandry assigned,
And first was he by human skill to rouse
The slumbering glebe, whetting the minds of men
With care on care, nor suffering realm of his
In drowsy sloth to stagnate. Before Jove
Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen;
Georgics |
