| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: great breeder of sheep, and deals extensively in cat-
tle. He attends market days for miles around in
every sort of weather, and drives sitting bowed low
over the reins, his lank grey hair curling over the
collar of his warm coat, and with a green plaid rug
round his legs. The calmness of advanced age
gives a solemnity to his manner. He is clean-
shaved; his lips are thin and sensitive; something
rigid and monarchal in the set of his features lends
a certain elevation to the character of his face. He
has been known to drive miles in the rain to see a
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: good man might often compel himself to love and praise another, and to be
the friend and approver of another; and that there might be an involuntary
love, such as a man might feel to an unnatural father or mother, or
country, or the like. Now bad men, when their parents or country have any
defects, look on them with malignant joy, and find fault with them and
expose and denounce them to others, under the idea that the rest of mankind
will be less likely to take themselves to task and accuse them of neglect;
and they blame their defects far more than they deserve, in order that the
odium which is necessarily incurred by them may be increased: but the good
man dissembles his feelings, and constrains himself to praise them; and if
they have wronged him and he is angry, he pacifies his anger and is
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