| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: a second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected.
"You talked to it?" asked Wish.
"For the space, probably, of an hour."
"Chatty?" I said, joining the party of the sceptics.
"The poor devil was in trouble," said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end
and with the very faintest note of reproof.
"Sobbing?" some one asked.
Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. "Good Lord!" he said;
"yes." And then, "Poor fellow! yes."
"Where did you strike it?" asked Evans, in his best American accent.
"I never realised," said Clayton, ignoring him, "the poor sort of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: detest the principles laid down and defended by them, I was
compelled to acknowledge the vast mental endowments of the men.
Cunningham rose; and his rising was the signal for almost
tumultous applause. You will say this was scarcely in keeping
with the solemnity of the occasion, but to me it served to
increase its grandeur and gravity. The applause, though
tumultuous, was not joyous. It seemed to me, as it thundered up
from the vast audience, like the fall of an immense shaft, flung
from shoulders already galled by its crushing weight. It was
like saying, "Doctor, we have borne this burden long enough, and
willingly fling it upon you. Since it was you who brought it
My Bondage and My Freedom |
