| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: and her suitor longer alone in the back room. Later on, when she
tried to remember the details of those first days, few came back to
her: she knew only that she got up each morning with the sense of
having to push the leaden hours up the same long steep of pain.
Mr. Ramy came daily now. Every evening he and his betrothed
went out for a stroll around the Square, and when Evelina came in
her cheeks were always pink. "He's kissed her under that tree at
the corner, away from the lamp-post," Ann Eliza said to herself,
with sudden insight into unconjectured things. On Sundays they
usually went for the whole afternoon to the Central Park, and Ann
Eliza, from her seat in the mortal hush of the back room, followed
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: "Yes. I have been cured of the presumption of thinking
otherwise."
"Cured? By whom?"
"By my husband, if I must tell."
"Ah--your husband--your husband! How strange it seems!
I remember you hinted something of the sort the other
day. What do you really believe in these matters,
Tess?" he asked. "You seem to have no
religion--perhaps owing to me."
"But I have. Though I don't believe in anything
supernatural."
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
