| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: seemed to us, who had lived in utter darkness for many days.
I turned to Harry, and the man who had just been ready to die
was rising to his feet!
"Wait a minute--not so fast!" I said half angrily, springing
to support him. "And, for Heaven's sake, don't make any noise!
We're in no condition to fight now, and you know what that light
means."
"But what is it?" demanded the boy excitedly. "Come on, man--
let's go!"
To tell the truth, I felt as eager as he. For the first time
I understood clearly why the Bible and ancient mythology made such
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: the lists of theory: one well worthy of mention, Mr. W. D. Howells;
and none ever couched a lance with narrower convictions. His own
work and those of his pupils and masters singly occupy his mind; he
is the bondslave, the zealot of his school; he dreams of an advance
in art like what there is in science; he thinks of past things as
radically dead; he thinks a form can be outlived: a strange
immersion in his own history; a strange forgetfulness of the
history of the race! Meanwhile, by a glance at his own works
(could he see them with the eager eyes of his readers) much of this
illusion would be dispelled. For while he holds all the poor
little orthodoxies of the day - no poorer and no smaller than those
|
