| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: he thinks himself legitimist."
"Well! we are coming along, we are advancing! In five years from now
Europe will be with us. Switzerland and Italy are fermenting finely;
and when the occasion comes we are all ready. Here, in Paris, we have
fifty thousand armed men, without counting two hundred thousand
citizens who haven't a penny to live upon."
"Pooh," said Leon, "how about the fortifications?"
"Pie-crust; we can swallow them," replied Masson.
"In the first place, we sha'n't let the cannon in, and, in the second,
we've got a little machine more powerful than all the forts in the
world,--a machine, due to a doctor, which cured more people during the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: to mention that he had buried his "dear wife" there
six-and-twenty years ago. Mr. Van Wyk, impassive,
could not help speculating in his mind swiftly as to
the sort of woman that would mate with such a man.
Did they make an adventurous and well-matched pair?
No. Very possible she had been small, frail, no doubt
very feminine--or most likely commonplace with do-
mestic instincts, utterly insignificant. But Captain
Whalley was no garrulous bore, and shaking his head
as if to dissipate the momentary gloom that had settled
on his handsome old face, he alluded conversationally to
End of the Tether |
