| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: all the love for you that a woman's heart can hold and give, and
you are far away, you are cursing me, and there is not a word of
consolation from you. But it is only chance that has made you
leave me, I am sure, for if you were at Paris, you would not
leave my bedside.
December 25.
My doctor tells me I must not write every day. And indeed my
memories only increase my fever, but yesterday I received a
letter which did me good, more because of what it said than by
the material help which it contained. I can write to you, then,
to-day. This letter is from your father, and this is what it
Camille |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: these rare points of actual contact, the number of prisoners
is far in excess of the number of casualties. Parties on each
side will be perfectly ignorant of events to right or left of
them, ignorant even of their gains and losses. Last year I ran
into Whites in a village which the Reds had assured me was
strongly held by themselves, and these same Whites refused
to believe that the village where I had spent the preceding
night was in the possession of the Reds. It is largely an
affair of scouting parties, of patrols dodging each other
through the forest tracks, of swift raids, of sudden
conviction (often entirely erroneous) on the part of one side
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