| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: gifts. She asked me if I called virtue a gift--a thing handed to
us in a parcel on our first birthday; and I declared that this very
enquiry proved to me the problem had already caught her by the
skirt. She would have help however, the same help I myself had
once had, in resisting its tendency to make one cross.
"What help do you mean?"
"That of the member for Clockborough."
She stared, smiled, then returned: "Why my idea has been to help
HIM!"
She HAD helped him--I had his own word for it that at Clockborough
her bedevilment of the voters had really put him in. She would do
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: the violence, as well of the fever as of the dreadful reproaches of
my conscience, extorted some words from me like praying to God,
though I cannot say they were either a prayer attended with desires
or with hopes: it was rather the voice of mere fright and distress.
My thoughts were confused, the convictions great upon my mind, and
the horror of dying in such a miserable condition raised vapours
into my head with the mere apprehensions; and in these hurries of
my soul I knew not what my tongue might express. But it was rather
exclamation, such as, "Lord, what a miserable creature am I! If I
should be sick, I shall certainly die for want of help; and what
will become of me!" Then the tears burst out of my eyes, and I
Robinson Crusoe |
