| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: miserable little cottage in one of the squalid streets of the
Third District that nature and the city fathers seemed to have
forgotten.
As bare and comfortless as the room was Miss Sophie's life. She
rented these four walls from an unkempt little Creole woman,
whose progeny seemed like the promised offspring of Abraham. She
scarcely kept the flickering life in her pale little body by the
unceasing toil of a pair of bony hands, stitching, stitching,
ceaselessly, wearingly, on the bands and pockets of trousers. It
was her bread, this monotonous, unending work; and though whole
days and nights constant labour brought but the most meagre
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Wife, et al by Anton Chekhov: reality! That's because you lead a cramped life full of hatred,
see no one, and read nothing but your engineering books. And, you
know, there are good people, good books! Yes . . . but I am
exhausted and it wearies me to talk. I ought to be in bed."
"So I am going away, Natalie," I said.
"Yes . . . yes. . . . _Merci_. . . ."
I stood still for a little while, then went upstairs. An hour
later -- it was half-past one -- I went downstairs again with a
candle in my hand to speak to my wife. I didn't know what I was
going to say to her, but I felt that I must say some thing very
important and necessary. She was not in her study, the door
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