| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: "All right. Get the ladder over."
I hesitated. Should I whisper something to him? But what?
His immobility seemed to have been never disturbed.
What could I tell him he did not know already? . . . Finally
I went on deck.
II
The skipper of the Sephora had a thin red whisker all round his face,
and the sort of complexion that goes with hair of that color;
also the particular, rather smeary shade of blue in the eyes.
He was not exactly a showy figure; his shoulders were high,
his stature but middling--one leg slightly more bandy
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: she saw something like a look of spring, a tender smile even there.
"Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?"--
was a question, however, which did not augur much.
But neither geography nor tranquillity could come all at once,
and Emma was now in a humour to resolve that they should both come
in time.
The morning of the interesting day arrived, and Mrs. Weston's
faithful pupil did not forget either at ten, or eleven, or twelve
o'clock, that she was to think of her at four.
"My dear, dear anxious friend,"--said she, in mental soliloquy,
while walking downstairs from her own room, "always overcareful
Emma |
