| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: crimes a black and fearful catalogue is recorded in a family
history in my charter-chest. The recital of them would be too
horrible; it is enough to say, that in yon fatal apartment incest
and unnatural murder were committed. I will restore it to the
solitude to which the better judgment of those who preceded me
had consigned it; and never shall any one, so long as I can
prevent it, be exposed to a repetition of the supernatural
horrors which could shake such courage as yours."
Thus the friends, who had met with such glee, parted in a very
different mood--Lord Woodville to command the Tapestried Chamber
to be unmantled, and the door built up; and General Browne to
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: He wrote a brief reply to Gillingham. "I know I am entirely wrong, but I
don't agree with you. As to her having lived with and had three children
by him, my feeling is (though I can advance no logical or moral defence of it,
on the old lines) that it has done little more than finish her education.
I shall write to her, and learn whether what that woman said is true
or no."
As he had made up his mind to do this before he had written to his friend,
there had not been much reason for writing to the latter at all.
However, it was Phillotson's way to act thus.
He accordingly addressed a carefully considered epistle to Sue, and,
knowing her emotional temperament, threw a Rhadamanthine strictness
Jude the Obscure |
