| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: consternation,--
"B-r-r-r-r! I am as wet as a herring! DIEU! has anyone
ever seen such a contemptible climate?"
"Suzanne, come with me at once--I wish it," said the Comtesse,
peremptorily.
"Oh! Mama!" pleaded Suzanne.
"My lady. . .er. . .h'm!. . .my lady!. . ." came in feeble
accents from Jellyband, who stood clumsily trying to bar the way.
"PARDIEU, my good man," said Lady Blakeney, with some impatience,
"what are you standing in my way for, dancing about like a turkey with
a sore foot? Let me get to the fire, I am perished with the cold."
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: allusions to Calvinistic doctrines--election, predestination,
reprobation--were frequent; and each reference to these points
sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom. When he had done,
instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by his
discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to
me--I know not whether equally so to others--that the eloquence to
which I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid
dregs of disappointment--where moved troubling impulses of insatiate
yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John Rivers--
pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was--had not yet found that
peace of God which passeth all understanding: he had no more found
Jane Eyre |
