| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: confidence to the sallow face, confronted Ossipon like sleepless,
unwinking orbs flashing a cold fire.
"Perfectly. Always. Under every circumstance. What could stop
me? Why should I not? Why should I think twice about it?"
Ossipon gasped, as it were, discreetly.
"Do you mean to say you would hand it over to a `teck' if one came
to ask you for your wares?"
The other smiled faintly.
"Let them come and try it on, and you will see," he said. "They
know me, but I know also every one of them. They won't come near
me - not they."
The Secret Agent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: had been thrown overboard. They were rather loose for me, for he was
large and long in his limbs. He told me casually that the captain
was three-parts drunk in his own cabin. As I assumed the clothes,
I began asking him some questions about the destination of the ship.
He said the ship was bound to Hawaii, but that it had to land
him first.
"Where?" said I.
"It's an island, where I live. So far as I know, it hasn't got
a name."
He stared at me with his nether lip dropping, and looked so wilfully
stupid of a sudden that it came into my head that he desired
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
