| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: must have been fifty people about the bridge. We were as pleasant
as we could be with all but Carnival. We said good-bye, shaking
hands with the old gentleman who knew the river and the young
gentleman who had a smattering of English; but never a word for
Carnival. Poor Carnival! here was a humiliation. He who had been
so much identified with the canoes, who had given orders in our
name, who had shown off the boats and even the boatmen like a
private exhibition of his own, to be now so publicly shamed by the
lions of his caravan! I never saw anybody look more crestfallen
than he. He hung in the background, coming timidly forward ever
and again as he thought he saw some symptom of a relenting humour,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: agony crept over my frame. Before, I had only imagined the
wretchedness of my desolated home; the reality came on me as a new,
and a not less terrible, disaster. I tried to calm Ernest; I enquired
more minutely concerning my father, and her I named my cousin.
"She most of all," said Ernest, "requires consolation; she accused
herself of having caused the death of my brother, and that made her
very wretched. But since the murderer has been discovered--"
"The murderer discovered! Good God! how can that be? who could
attempt to pursue him? It is impossible; one might as well try to
overtake the winds, or confine a mountain-stream with a straw.
I saw him too; he was free last night!"
Frankenstein |
