| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: feeding, fill her silk-glands as and when she empties them by
spinning. Food is the means whereby she keeps the inexhaustible
factory going.
A month passes and, about the middle of September, the little ones
hatch, but without leaving their tabernacle, where they are to
spend the winter packed in soft wadding. The mother continues to
watch and spin, lessening her activity from day to day. She
recruits herself with a Locust at longer intervals; she sometimes
scorns those whom I myself entangle in her trap. This increasing
abstemiousness, a sign of decrepitude, slackens and at last stops
the work of the spinnerets.
The Life of the Spider |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: appeared to be very small in comparison with the great purple
mountains behind them.
"Honestly, though," said Clarissa, having looked, "I don't like views.
They're too inhuman." They walked on.
"How odd it is!" she continued impulsively. "This time yesterday
we'd never met. I was packing in a stuffy little room in the hotel.
We know absolutely nothing about each other--and yet--I feel as if I
_did_ know you!"
"You have children--your husband was in Parliament?"
"You've never been to school, and you live--?"
"With my aunts at Richmond."
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