| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: is the meaning of these difficulties----"
While Lousteau was wondering whether Dinah had put on a muslin gown on
purpose to protect herself by an insuperable obstacle, Bianchon, with
the help of the coachman, was seeing his luggage piled on the
diligence. Finally, he came to take leave of Dinah, who was
excessively friendly with him.
"Go home, Madame la Baronne, leave me here--Gatien will be coming," he
added in an undertone. "It is getting late," said he aloud. "Good-
bye!"
"Good-bye--great man!" cried Lousteau, shaking hands with Bianchon.
When the journalist and Madame de la Baudraye, side by side in the
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: that all right when we get them here.' " And yet I gathered it was
already better since Damien was dead, and far better than when he
was there alone and had his own (not always excellent) way. I have
now come far enough to meet you on a common ground of fact; and I
tell you that, to a mind not prejudiced by jealousy, all the
reforms of the lazaretto, and even those which he most vigorously
opposed, are properly the work of Damien. They are the evidence of
his success; they are what his heroism provoked from the reluctant
and the careless. Many were before him in the field; Mr. Meyer,
for instance, of whose faithful work we hear too little: there have
been many since; and some had more worldly wisdom, though none had
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