The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: be a Basque. It didn't necessarily follow that he
should understand Spanish; but I tried him with
the few words I know, and also with some French.
The whispered sounds I caught by bending my ear
to his lips puzzled me utterly. That afternoon the
young ladies from the Rectory (one of them read
Goethe with a dictionary, and the other had strug-
gled with Dante for years), coming to see Miss
Swaffer, tried their German and Italian on him
from the doorway. They retreated, just the least
bit scared by the flood of passionate speech which,
 Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: than the whole Olympus put together.
"Madame," he said, addressing Mme. de Senonches, "I have already
congratulated my friend Petit-Claud (a man with the stuff in him of
which Keepers of the Seals are made) on the honor of his approaching
connection with you, slight as are the ties between godmother and
goddaughter----" (this with the air of a man uttering an epigram, by
no means lost upon any woman in the room, for every woman was
listening without appearing to do so.) "And as for myself," he
continued, "I am delighted to have the opportunity of paying my homage
to you."
He spoke easily and fluently, as some great lord might speak under the
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