| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: flying wilderness of the world; the justification for the welter of
confusion surrounding it; the steady light which cast its beams, like
those of a lighthouse, with searching composure over the trackless
waste. In this little sanctuary were gathered together several
different people, but their identity was dissolved in a general glory
of something that might, perhaps, be called civilization; at any rate,
all dryness, all safety, all that stood up above the surge and
preserved a consciousness of its own, was centered in the drawing-room
of the Hilberys. Its purpose was beneficent; and yet so far above his
level as to have something austere about it, a light that cast itself
out and yet kept itself aloof. Then he began, in his mind, to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: rather than walk by her mother's side.
276 THE SCARLET LETTER
She broke continually into shouts of a wild, inarticulate, and
sometimes piercing music. When they reached the market-place,
she became still more restless, on perceiving the stir and bustle
The Scarlet Letter |
