| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: will be vices, and your virtues crime.
"If you save a man, you will be said to have killed him; if he
reappears on the scene, it will be positive that you have secured
the present at the cost of the future. If he is not dead, he will
die. Stumble, and you fall! Invent anything of any kind and claim
your rights, you will be crotchety, cunning, ill-disposed to
rising younger men.
"So, you see, my dear fellow, if I do not believe in God, I
believe still less in man. But do not you know in me another
Desplein, altogether different from the Desplein whom every one
abuses?--However, we will not stir that mud-heap.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: had become a silver thread of laughing, foaming spray
and deep, still pools beneath the rocks. The fields
were few and small. The little clearings made scarcely
an impression in the towering virgin forests.
"Great guns, Kiddo!" he exclaimed, "this is some
country! By George, I had no idea there was such a
place so close to New York!"
She looked at him with uneasy surprise. What could
be in his mind? The solemn gorge through which they
were passing gave no entrancing views of clouds or sky
or towering peaks. Its wooded cliffs hung
|
