| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: of a rich olive hue, his short beard was jet black,
and his eyes, also black, had a languishing ex-
pression. He asked confidentially:
"You want to see Him?"
All lightness of spirit and body having departed
from me at the touch of officialdom, I looked at
the scribe without animation and asked in my turn
wearily:
"What do you think? Is it any use?"
"My goodness! He has asked for you twice to-
day."
The Shadow Line |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: associated with that all-supreme moment. We weave within us poetic
fancies quite equal to those of the woman; and the day when either
party guesses them they take wings to themselves and fly away. Are not
such things like the flower of wild fruits, bitter-sweet, grown in the
heart of a forest, the joy of the scant sun-rays, the joy, as Canalis
says in the "Maiden's Song," of the plant itself whose eyes unclosing
see its own image within its breast?
Such emotions, now taking place in La Briere, tend to show that, like
other poor fellows for whom life begins in toil and care, he had never
yet been loved. Arriving at Havre overnight, he had gone to bed at
once, like a true coquette, to obliterate all traces of fatigue; and
Modeste Mignon |
