| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: dairy. This room was all that remained of a cottage that had been torn
down. The dilapidated wall-paper trembled in the drafts. Madame
Aubain, overwhelmed by recollections, would hang her head, while the
children were afraid to open their mouths. Then, "Why don't you go and
play?" their mother would say; and they would scamper off.
Paul would go to the old barn, catch birds, throw stones into the
pond, or pound the trunks of the trees with a stick till they
resounded like drums. Virginia would feed the rabbits and run to pick
the wild flowers in the fields, and her flying legs would disclose her
little embroidered pantalettes. One autumn evening, they struck out
for home through the meadows. The new moon illumined part of the sky
A Simple Soul |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: no proof of this, and her instinct in the circumstances
was to avoid its purlieus.
The small dairies to the west, beyond Port-Bredy, in
which she had served as supernumerary milkmaid during
the spring and summer required no further aid. Room
would probably have been made for her at Talbothays,
if only out of sheer compassion; but comfortable as her
life had been there she could not go back. The
anti-climax would be too intolerable; and her return
might bring reproach upon her idolized husband. She
could not have borne their pity, and their whispered
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
