| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: For all answer, Vandenesse hurried Florine away, followed by his wife.
A few moments later the three masks, driven rapidly by the Vandenesse
coachman, reached Florine's house. As soon as she had entered her own
apartments the actress unmasked. Madame de Vandenesse could not
restrain a quiver of surprise at Florine's beauty as she stood there
choking with anger, and superb in her wrath and jealousy.
"There is, somewhere in these rooms," said Vandenesse, "a portfolio,
the key of which you have never had; the letters are probably in it."
"Well, well, for once in my life I am bewildered; you know something
that I have been uneasy about for some days," cried Florine, rushing
into the study in search of the portfolio.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: An arm's-length out and overside the banked fog held them bound,
But, as they heard or groan or word, they fired at the sound.
For one cried out on the Name of God, and one to have him cease,
And the questing volley found them both and bade them hold their peace;
And one called out on a heathen joss and one on the Virgin's Name,
And the schooling bullet leaped across and showed them whence they came.
And in the waiting silences the rudder whined beneath,
And each man drew his watchful breath slow taken 'tween the teeth --
Trigger and ear and eye acock, knit brow and hard-drawn lips --
Bracing his feet by chock and cleat for the rolling of the ships.
Till they heard the cough of a wounded man that fought in the fog for breath,
Verses 1889-1896 |
