| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: gave Sis such a chance at me. I would run away, but first I would
kill Carter Brooks.
Yes, I was driven to thoughts of murder. It shows how the first
false step leads down and down, to crime and even to death. Oh
never, never, gentle reader, take that first False Step. Who knows
to what it may lead!
"One false Step is never retreived." Gray--On a Favorite Cat.
I reflected also on how the woman in the book had ruined her life
with a letter. "The written word does not change," she had said. "It
remains always, embodying a dead truth and giving it apparent life."
"Apparent life" was exactly what my letter had given to H.
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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: They are remarkable under our present point of view from so readily exciting
the secretion of tears. Many a father and son have wept on meeting
after a long separation, especially if the meeting has been unexpected.
No doubt extreme joy by itself tends to act on the lacrymal glands;
but on such occasions as the foregoing vague thoughts of the grief which would
have been felt had the father and son never met, will probably have passed
through their minds; and grief naturally leads to the secretion of tears.
Thus on the return of Ulysses:--"Telemachus
Rose, and clung weeping round his father's breast.
There the pent grief rained o'er them, yearning thus.
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Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
