| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: laid her finger on her lips.
"You see, Sisters, that if I had conceived the horrible idea of
betraying you, I could have given you up already, more than once----"
At the words the priest came out of his hiding-place and stood in
their midst.
"I cannot believe, monsieur, that you can be one of our persecutors,"
he said, addressing the stranger, "and I trust you. What do you want
with me?"
The priest's holy confidence, the nobleness expressed in every line in
his face, would have disarmed a murderer. For a moment the mysterious
stranger, who had brought an element of excitement into lives of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: element of animal food among the islands; and I had many occasions,
my mind being quickened by my cannibal surroundings, to observe his
character and the manner of his death. Many islanders live with
their pigs as we do with our dogs; both crowd around the hearth
with equal freedom; and the island pig is a fellow of activity,
enterprise, and sense. He husks his own cocoa-nuts, and (I am
told) rolls them into the sun to burst; he is the terror of the
shepherd. Mrs. Stevenson, senior, has seen one fleeing to the
woods with a lamb in his mouth; and I saw another come rapidly (and
erroneously) to the conclusion that the CASCO was going down, and
swim through the flush water to the rail in search of an escape.
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