| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: and the "distinguished mourners" who had formed the escort of the
famous writer knew nothing of the woman they were committing to
the grave. Glennard could not even remember at what season she
had been buried; but his mood indulged the fancy that it must have
been on some such day of harsh sunlight, the incisive February
brightness that gives perspicuity without warmth. The white
avenues stretched before him interminably, lined with stereotyped
emblems of affliction, as though all the platitudes ever uttered
had been turned to marble and set up over the unresisting dead.
Here and there, no doubt, a frigid urn or an insipid angel
imprisoned some fine-fibred grief, as the most hackneyed words may
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: were the only remedies at the colonists' disposal. The fever was not as yet
very high, but it soon appeared that it would probably recur at regular
intervals. Gideon Spilett first recognized this on the 6th of December.
The poor boy, whose fingers, nose, and ears had become extremely pale,
was at first seized with slight shiverings, horripilations, and tremblings.
His pulse was weak and irregular, his skin dry, his thirst intense. To this
soon succeeded a hot fit; his face became flushed; his skin reddened; his
pulse quick; then a profuse perspiration broke out after which the fever
seemed to diminish. The attack had lasted nearly five hours.
Gideon Spilett had not left Herbert, who, it was only too certain, was now
seized by an intermittent fever, and this fever must be cured at any cost
The Mysterious Island |
