| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: very violent. When he left it was after two. He had gone up to
the house--Thomas did not know why--and at three o'clock he was
shot at the foot of the circular staircase.
The following morning Louise had been ill. She had asked for
Arnold, and was told he had left town. Thomas had not the moral
courage to tell her of the crime. She refused a doctor, and
shrank morbidly from having her presence known. Mrs. Watson and
Thomas had had their hands full, and at last Rosie had been
enlisted to help them. She carried necessary provisions--little
enough--to the lodge, and helped to keep the secret.
Thomas told me quite frankly that he had been anxious to keep
The Circular Staircase |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: oatmeal, powder horn, cord to hobble his horse, and other equipments.
He went straight to a dirty, ill-kept little house, the small windows
of which were almost invisible, blackened as they were with some
unknown dirt. The chimney was wrapped in rags; and the roof, which was
full of holes, was covered with sparrows. A heap of all sorts of
refuse lay before the very door. From the window peered the head of a
Jewess, in a head-dress with discoloured pearls.
"Is your husband at home?" said Bulba, dismounting, and fastening his
horse's bridle to an iron hook beside the door.
"He is at home," said the Jewess, and hastened out at once with a
measure of corn for the horse, and a stoup of beer for the rider.
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
