| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: formidable shrill voice, "see this paper that I pull out of my pocket.
Look at the name there: it is the name of the great David, I believe,
the ink scarce dry yet. Can you guess its nature? It is the warrant
for your arrest, which I have but to touch this bell beside me to have
executed on the spot. Once in the Tolbooth upon this paper, may God
help you, for the die is cast!"
I must never deny that I was greatly horrified by so much baseness, and
much unmanned by the immediacy and ugliness of my danger. Mr. Simon
had already gloried in the changes of my hue; I make no doubt I was now
no ruddier than my shirt; my speech besides trembled.
"There is a gentleman in this room," cried I. "I appeal to him. I put
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: already in bed and I saw no attending girl-friend shadow near her
vague but unmistakable form, half-lost in the obscurity of the
little garden.
I heard Fyne exclaim "Nothing" and then Mrs. Fyne's well-trained,
responsible voice uttered the words, "It's what I have said," with
incisive equanimity. By that time I had passed on, raising my hat.
Almost at once Fyne caught me up and slowed down to my strolling
gait which must have been infinitely irksome to his high pedestrian
faculties. I am sure that all his muscular person must have
suffered from awful physical boredom; but he did not attempt to
charm it away by conversation. He preserved a portentous and dreary
Chance |
