| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: As the dumb things of field and wood,
The clod, the tree, and starry flower,
Alone of all things have the power.
I AM LIKE ONE THAT FOR LONG DAYS HAD SATE
I AM like one that for long days had sate,
With seaward eyes set keen against the gale,
On some lone foreland, watching sail by sail,
The portbound ships for one ship that was late;
And sail by sail, his heart burned up with joy,
And cruelly was quenched, until at last
One ship, the looked-for pennant at its mast,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: ribbon at the point of the tightly-fitting corselet bodice. Any
Parisian meeting the Baroness on the boulevard would smile and condemn
her outright; he does not admit any plea of extenuating circumstances,
like a modern jury on a case of fratricide. A scoffer is always
superficial, and in consequence cruel; the rascal never thinks of
throwing the proper share of ridicule on society that made the
individual what he is; for Nature only makes dull animals of us, we
owe the fool to artificial conditions."
"The thing that I admire about Bixiou is his completeness," said
Blondet; "whenever he is not gibing at others, he is laughing at
himself."
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