| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: had watched her manoeuvres with lazy amusement. She had made no
reply to his suggestion that they should spend the
afternoon together, but as her plan unfolded itself he felt
fairly confident of being included in it. The house was empty
when at length he heard her step on the stair and strolled out of
the billiard-room to join her.
She had on a hat and walking-dress, and the dogs were bounding at
her feet.
"I thought, after all, the air might do me good," she explained;
and he agreed that so simple a remedy was worth trying.
The excursionists would be gone at least four hours; Lily and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: I was then privileged or accursed, I dare not say which, to see
that which was on the bed, lying there black like ink,
transformed before my eyes. The skin, and the flesh, and the
muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the human
body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as
adamant, began to melt and dissolve.
"I know that the body may be separated into its
elements by external agencies, but I should have refused to
believe what I saw. For here there was some internal force, of
which I knew nothing, that caused dissolution and change.
"Here too was all the work by which man had been made
The Great God Pan |
