| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: could be thrown down with a push of the shoulder. Matho stopped up the
holes in them with the stones of the houses. It was the last struggle;
he hoped for nothing, and yet he told himself that fortune was fickle.
As the Carthaginians approached they noticed a man on the rampart who
towered over the battlements from his belt upwards. The arrows that
flew about him seemed to frighten him no more than a swarm of
swallows. Extraordinary to say, none of them touched him.
Hamilcar pitched his camp on the south side; Narr' Havas, to his
right, occupied the plain of Rhades, and Hanno the shore of the lake;
and the three generals were to maintain their respective positions, so
as all to attack the walls simultaneously.
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: dandy who shrinks from swearing in the Russian language, but amply
relieves his feelings in the language of France. Next, inclining his
head slightly to one side, our hero endeavoured to pose as though he
were addressing a middle-aged lady of exquisite refinement; and the
result of these efforts was a picture which any artist might have
yearned to portray. Next, his delight led him gracefully to execute a
hop in ballet fashion, so that the wardrobe trembled and a bottle of
eau-de-Cologne came crashing to the floor. Yet even this contretemps
did not upset him; he merely called the offending bottle a fool, and
then debated whom first he should visit in his attractive guise.
Suddenly there resounded through the hall a clatter of spurred heels,
Dead Souls |
