| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: treasures of the world was as nothing to him now; the treasures
themselves seemed to him as contemptible as pebbles to an admirer of
diamonds; they were but gewgaws compared with the eternal glories of
the other life. A curse lay, he thought, on all things that came to
him from this source. He sounded dark depths of painful thought as he
listened to the service performed for Melmoth. The Dies irae filled
him with awe; he felt all the grandeur of that cry of a repentant soul
trembling before the Throne of God. The Holy Spirit, like a devouring
flame, passed through him as fire consumes straw.
The tears were falling from his eyes when--"Are you a relation of the
dead?" the beadle asked him.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: groping in the forward cuddy. Then he uttered a great shout of
satisfaction. The "stuff" was there, all of it, though the mass
had been cut into quarters, three parts of it stowed in tea-
flails, the fourth still reeved up in the hammock netting.
"We've got it!" he cried to Moran, who had followed him. "We've
got it, Moran! Over $100,000. We're rich--rich as boodlers, you
and I. Oh, it was worth fighting for, after all, wasn't it? Now
we'll get out of here--now we'll cut for home."
"It's only Charlie I'm thinking about," answered Moran,
hesitating. "If it wasn't for that we'd be all right. I don't
know whether we did right, after all, in jumping the camp here. I
|
