| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: treasures poured forth by this girl, whose radiant eyes gave the lie
to none of the promises which they made.
She was an Oriental poem, in which shone the sun that Saadi, that
Hafiz, have set in their pulsing strophes. Only, neither the rhythm of
Saadi, nor that of Pindar, could have expressed the ecstasy--full of
confusion and stupefaction--which seized the delicious girl when the
error in which an iron hand had caused her to live was at an end.
"Dead!" she said, "I am dead, Adolphe! Take me away to the world's
end, to an island where no one knows us. Let there be no traces of our
flight! We should be followed to the gates of hell. God! here is the
day! Escape! Shall I ever see you again? Yes, to-morrow I will see
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: Death laid his staff upon my enchantment, and I understood many things
that had been only words to me hitherto. To have been a husband for a
year, and a father for a moment, and in that moment to lose all--this
unblinded me. Looking back, it seemed to me that I had never done anything
except for myself all my days. I left the world. In due time I became a
priest and lived in my own country. But my worldly experience and my
secular education had given to my opinions a turn too liberal for the
place where my work was laid. I was soon advised concerning this by those
in authority over me. And since they could not change me and I could them,
yet wished to work and to teach, the New World was suggested, and I
volunteered to give the rest of my life to missions. It was soon found
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