| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: dread some ill news.--O, Killbuck, man! were there nae deer and
goats in the country besides, but ye behoved to gang and worry
his creature, by a' other folk's?"
By this time Annaple, with a brow like a tragic volume, had
hobbled towards him, and caught his horse by the bridle. The
despair in her look was so evident as to deprive even him of the
power of asking the cause. "O my bairn!" she cried, "gang na
forward--gang na forward--it's a sight to kill onybody, let alane
thee."
"In God's name, what's the matter?" said the astonished
horseman, endeavouring to extricate his bridle from the grasp of
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: invariably dropped his tools and fled below, with stream-
ing tail and shaking all over, before the fury of that
"devil." But it was when he raised up his eyes to the
bridge where one of these sailor frauds was always
planted by law in charge of his ship that he felt almost
dizzy with rage. He abominated them all; it was an
old feud, from the time he first went to sea, an un-
licked cub with a great opinion of himself, in the
engine-room. The slights that had been put upon him.
The persecutions he had suffered at the hands of skip-
pers--of absolute nobodies in a steamship after all.
End of the Tether |
