| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: view of the influence which he saw these things had on me,
that he blessed God he had come to visit me, and resolved not
to leave me till the last moment; that is, not to leave visiting me.
It was no less than twelve days after our receiving sentence
before any were ordered for execution, and then upon a
Wednesday the dead warrant, as they call it, came down, and
I found my name was among them. A terrible blow this was
to my new resolutions; indeed my heart sank within me, and
I swooned away twice, one after another, but spoke not a word.
The good minister was sorely afflicted for me, and did what he
could to comfort me with the same arguments, and the same
Moll Flanders |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: wear the vile dress hat of civilisation. Spanish was the language
of the streets. It was difficult to get along without a word or
two of that language for an occasion. The only communications in
which the population joined were with a view to amusement. A
weekly public ball took place with great etiquette, in addition to
the numerous fandangoes in private houses. There was a really fair
amateur brass band. Night after night serenaders would be going
about the street, sometimes in a company and with several
instruments and voice together, sometimes severally, each guitar
before a different window. It was a strange thing to lie awake in
nineteenth-century America, and hear the guitar accompany, and one
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