| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: Who when such deeds are done
Can hope heaven's bolts to shun?
If sin like this to honor can aspire,
Why dance I still and lead the sacred choir?
(Ant. 2)
No more I'll seek earth's central oracle,
Or Abae's hallowed cell,
Nor to Olympia bring
My votive offering.
If before all God's truth be not bade plain.
O Zeus, reveal thy might,
 Oedipus Trilogy |
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: grimacing. So women, too, admire such young people with that eager
pleasure which men take in watching a pretty girl, elegant, gracious,
and embellished with all the virginal charms with which our
imagination pleases to adorn the perfect woman. If this hurried glance
at the population of Paris has enabled us to conceive the rarity of a
Raphaelesque face, and the passionate admiration which such an one
must inspire at the first sight, the prime interest of our history
will have been justified. /Quod erat demonstrandum/--if one may be
permitted to apply scholastic formulae to the science of manners.
Upon one of those fine spring mornings, when the leaves, although
unfolded, are not yet green, when the sun begins to gild the roofs,
 The Girl with the Golden Eyes |