| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: behind the first thing that come handy, and rushed.
She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says:
"Oh, he's dead, he's dead, I know he's dead!"
And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered
something or other, which showed he warn't in his
right mind; then she flung up her hands, and says:
"He's alive, thank God! And that's enough!"
and she snatched a kiss of him, and flew for the house
to get the bed ready, and scattering orders right and left
at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as her tongue
could go, every jump of the way.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: and I could not help noticing the unusual roundness of his eyes.
These are trifling instances, though it's to no commander's
advantage to be suspected of ludicrous eccentricities.
But I was also more seriously affected. There are to a seaman
certain words, gestures, that should in given conditions come
as naturally, as instinctively as the winking of a menaced eye.
A certain order should spring on to his lips without thinking;
a certain sign should get itself made, so to speak,
without reflection. But all unconscious alertness had abandoned me.
I had to make an effort of will to recall myself back
(from the cabin) to the conditions of the moment.
The Secret Sharer |
