| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: household. Twice in my life I have been set aside as you are, and
overwhelmed by an avalanche of folly; I have quietly waited and let it
pass."
"Yes," said Rabourdin, "but you were not calumniated; your honor was
not assailed, compromised--"
"Ha, ha, ha!" cried des Lupeaulx, interrupting him with a burst of
Homeric laughter. "Why, that's the daily bread of every remarkable man
in this glorious kingdom of France! And there are but two ways to meet
such calumny,--either yield to it, pack up, and go plant cabbages in
the country; or else rise above it, march on, fearless, and don't turn
your head."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: and was just emerging into an open space, when the traveller's
ears were saluted by a sound more mournful than even that of the
wind. It was like the wailing of someone in distress, and it
seemed to proceed from beneath a tall and lonely fir-tree, in the
centre of a cleared but uninclosed and uncultivated field. The
Puritan could not but remember that this was the very spot which
had been made accursed a few hours before by the execution of the
Quakers whose bodies had been thrown together into one hasty
grave, beneath the tree on which they suffered. He struggled
however, against the superstitious fears which belonged to the
age, and compelled himself to pause and listen.
Twice Told Tales |
