| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: weapons, as on the 29th of November, 1812. He had let his beard grow,
also his hair, which was tangled and matted, and his face was
neglected, so that nothing might be wanting to represent the awful
truth.
"I can guess your purpose," cried Monsieur Fanjat, when he saw the
colonel getting out of the carriage. "If you want to succeed, do not
let my niece see you in that equipage. To-night I will give her opium.
During her sleep, we will dress her as she was at Studzianka, and
place her in the carriage. I will follow you in another vehicle."
About two in the morning, the sleeping countess was placed in the
carriage and wrapped in heavy coverings. A few peasants with torches
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: A kind of arm carried a complicated metallic case, about
which green flashes scintillated, and out of the funnel of
this there smoked the Heat-Ray.
In a few minutes there was, so far as the soldier could see,
not a living thing left upon the common, and every bush and
tree upon it that was not already a blackened skeleton was
burning. The hussars had been on the road beyond the
curvature of the ground, and he saw nothing of them. He
heard the Martians rattle for a time and then become still.
The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until
the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear,
War of the Worlds |
