| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: deserve such suffering?--so kind as he is!"
I accompanied her downstairs and assisted her in getting into the
carriage, and there I saw her father bent almost double.
Mademoiselle Taillefer tried to stifle his moans by putting her
handkerchief to his mouth; unhappily he saw me; his face became even
more distorted, a convulsive cry rent the air, and he gave me a
dreadful look as the carriage rolled away.
That dinner, that evening exercised a cruel influence on my life and
on my feelings. I loved Mademoiselle Taillefer, precisely, perhaps,
because honor and decency forbade me to marry the daughter of a
murderer, however good a husband and father he might be. A curious
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: supplies of any sort that his experiments might require.
He fitted up the little back room in the attic as his workshop, and
from thence a net-work of wires soon ran throughout the house. Not
only had every outside door its electric bell, but every window was
fitted with a burglar alarm; moreover no one could cross the threshold
of any interior room without registering the fact in Rob's workshop.
The gas was lighted by an electric fob; a chime, connected with an
erratic clock in the boy's room, woke the servants at all hours of the
night and caused the cook to give warning; a bell rang whenever the
postman dropped a letter into the box; there were bells, bells, bells
everywhere, ringing at the right time, the wrong time and all the
The Master Key |
