| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: This solicitation dropped, alas, as it came: if I could immediately
have succumbed to it I might have spared myself--well, you'll see what.
Instead of succumbing I sprang again to my feet, looked at her bed,
and took a helpless middle way. "Why did you pull the curtain
over the place to make me think you were still there?"
Flora luminously considered; after which, with her little divine smile:
"Because I don't like to frighten you!"
"But if I had, by your idea, gone out--?"
She absolutely declined to be puzzled; she turned her eyes to the flame
of the candle as if the question were as irrelevant, or at any rate
as impersonal, as Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine. "Oh, but you know,"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: It all depended upon the company which he found over at Klein's
and the size of "the game." He did not say this, but she understood it,
and laughed, nodding good-by to him.
Both children wanted to follow their father when they saw him
starting out. He kissed them and promised to bring them back
bonbons and peanuts.
II
Mrs. Pontellier's eyes were quick and bright; they were a
yellowish brown, about the color of her hair. She had a way of
turning them swiftly upon an object and holding them there as if
lost in some inward maze of contemplation or thought.
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
