| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: home. She thought of the future now as she looked upward to the bit of
sky which was all the high walls suffered her to see; then she turned
her eyes to the angle where the sun crept on, and to the roof above
the room in which he had slept. Hers was the solitary love, the
persistent love, which glides into every thought and becomes the
substance, or, as our fathers might have said, the tissue of life.
When the would-be friends of Pere Grandet came in the evening for
their game at cards, she was gay and dissimulating; but all the
morning she talked of Charles with her mother and Nanon. Nanon had
brought herself to see that she could pity the sufferings of her young
mistress without failing in her duty to the old master, and she would
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: "I don't want the old folks to see." Granny was, in fact, already
stirring and muttering, and the old father asked: "Who is there?"
Olga brought her own smock and skirt, dressed Fyokla, and then
both went softly into the inner room, trying not to make a noise
with the door.
"Is that you, you sleek one?" Granny grumbled angrily, guessing
who it was. "Fie upon you, nightwalker! . . . Bad luck to you!"
"It's all right, it's all right," whispered Olga, wrapping Fyokla
up; "it's all right, dearie."
All was stillness again. They always slept badly; everyone was
kept awake by something worrying and persistent: the old man by
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