| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: the day, it shall also be that I do not sleep at night."
As we travel on the rough road, for a road of an ancient
and imperfect kind there was, I held down my head and slept.
Again I waked with a sense of guilt and of time passed,
and found Madam Mina still sleeping, and the sun low down.
But all was indeed changed. The frowning mountains seemed further
away, and we were near the top of a steep rising hill, on summit
of which was such a castle as Jonathan tell of in his diary.
At once I exulted and feared. For now, for good or ill,
the end was near.
I woke Madam Mina, and again tried to hypnotize her, but alas!
Dracula |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: and much more slowly, and the mouth is kept closed. The curvature
of the naso-labial furrow is also slightly different in the two cases.
We thus see that no abrupt line of demarcation can be drawn between
the movement of the features during the most violent laughter and a
very faint smile.[16]
A smile, therefore, may be said to be the first stage in the development
of a laugh. But a different and more probable view may be suggested;
namely, that the habit of uttering load reiterated sounds from a sense
of pleasure, first led to the retraction of the corners of the mouth
and of the upper lip, and to the contraction of the orbicular muscles;
and that now, through association and long-continued habit,
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
