| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: ancestor--'was a man of jest,' but it was temper'd with something which
withheld him from that, and many other ungracious pranks, of which he as
undeservedly bore the blame;--but it was his misfortune all his life long
to bear the imputation of saying and doing a thousand things, of which
(unless my esteem blinds me) his nature was incapable. All I blame him
for--or rather, all I blame and alternately like him for, was that
singularity of his temper, which would never suffer him to take pains to
set a story right with the world, however in his power. In every ill usage
of that sort, he acted precisely as in the affair of his lean horse--he
could have explained it to his honour, but his spirit was above it; and
besides, he ever looked upon the inventor, the propagator and believer of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: hideous effort of appreciation, for he was as irrepressibly
good-humoured under ghastly snubs as a parliamentary
candidate on the hustings.
The names remaining were called in the same
manner.
"Now I think I have done with you." said Bathsheba,
closing the book and shaking back a stray twine of hair.
"Has William Smallbury returned?"
"No, ma'am."
"The new shepherd will want a man under him,"
suggested Henery Fray, trying to make himself official
Far From the Madding Crowd |
