| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Before her breath, as 'neath the spring's soft wind,
In its deep wintry cavern melts away
Self-love, so long in icy chains confin'd;
No selfishness and no self-will are nigh,
For at her advent they were forced to fly.
It seems as though she said: "As hours pass by
They spread before us life with kindly plan;
Small knowledge did the yesterday supply,
To know the morrow is conceal'd from man;
And if the thought of evening made me start,
The sun at setting gladden'd straight my heart.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: him by the circumstantial care which this girl had taken in order to
bring him to her, all hindered him from the attention, which the blind
have, necessary for the concentration of his intelligence and the
perfect lucidity of his recollection. The journey lasted half an hour.
When the carriage stopped, it was no longer on the street. The mulatto
and the coachman took Henri in their arms, lifted him out, and,
putting him into a sort of litter, conveyed him across a garden. He
could smell its flowers and the perfume peculiar to trees and grass.
The silence which reigned there was so profound that he could
distinguish the noise made by the drops of water falling from the
moist leaves. The two men took him to a staircase, set him on his
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
