| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: through her mind there now only moved a few primal sensations of
colorless well-being; a vague satisfaction in the thought that
she had swallowed her noxious last draught of medicine . . . and
that she should never again hear the creaking of her husband's
boots--those horrible boots--and that no one would come to bother
her about the next day's dinner . . . or the butcher's book. . . .
At last even these dim sensations spent themselves in the
thickening obscurity which enveloped her; a dusk now filled with
pale geometric roses, circling softly, interminably before her,
now darkened to a uniform blue-blackness, the hue of a summer
night without stars. And into this darkness she felt herself
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: likewise, and less that of a giddy, hare-brained boy, thinking
continually of naught but mischief."
Again he fell silent, and Myles sat quite still, wondering if it
was on account of any special one of his latest escapades that he
had been summoned to the office--the breaking of the window in
the Long Hall by the stone he had flung at the rook, or the
climbing of the South Tower for the jackdaw's nest.
"Thou hast a friend," said Sir James, suddenly breaking into his
speculations, "of such a kind that few in this world possess.
Almost ever since thou hast been here he hath been watching over
thee. Canst thou guess of whom I speak?"
Men of Iron |
