| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: declared it, and we found her unravelling the splendid web.
Thus she finished it perforce and sore against her will.
But as for thee, the wooers make thee answer thus, that
thou mayest know it in thine own heart, thou and all the
Achaeans! Send away thy mother, and bid her be married to
whomsoever her father commands, and whoso is well pleasing
unto her. But if she will continue for long to vex the sons
of the Achaeans, pondering in her heart those things that
Athene hath given her beyond women, knowledge of all fair
handiwork, yea, and cunning wit, and wiles--so be it! Such
wiles as hers we have never yet heard that any even of the
 The Odyssey |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: knees, his white hairs prostrate before you? I supplicate you--"
"Ginevra Piombo does not pass her word and break it," she replied. "I
am your daughter."
"She is right," said the baroness. "We are sent into the world to
marry."
"Do you encourage her in disobedience?" said the baron to his wife,
who, terrified by the word, now changed to marble.
"Refusing to obey an unjust order is not disobedience," said Ginevra.
"No order can be unjust from the lips of your father, my daughter. Why
do you judge my action? The repugnance that I feel is counsel from on
high, sent, it may be, to protect you from some great evil."
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