| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: library of the Colonnas, to make weight against her ardent imagination
by studying science, art, and letters. But in these studies she
acquired the taste for independence and liberal ideas, which threw
her, with her husband, into the ranks of the revolution. Rodolphe had
not yet learned that, besides five living languages, Francesca knew
Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. The charming creature perfectly understood
that, for a woman, the first condition of being learned is to keep it
deeply hidden.
Rodolphe spent the whole winter at Geneva. This winter passed like a
day. When spring returned, notwithstanding the infinite delights of
the society of a clever woman, wonderfully well informed, young and
 Albert Savarus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: had to do it. What do you think of it all?
I (slowly)--Do you want to know?
HE (with his note-book ready)--Of course. How do you regard it?
I--It makes me regard your interesting nation with the same
shuddering curiosity that I should bestow on a Pappan cannibal
chewing the scalp off his mother's skull. Does that convey any
idea to your mind? It makes me regard the whole pack of you as
heathens--real heathens--not the sort you send missions
to--creatures of another flesh and blood. You ought to have been
shot, not dead, but through the stomach, for your share in the
scandalous business, and the thing you call your newspaper ought
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