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: "And as I turned away to shut the door he pro-
nounced the word 'Merciful!' and expired.
"Eventually I certified heart-failure as the im-
mediate cause of death. His heart must have in-
deed failed him, or else he might have stood this
night of storm and exposure, too. I closed his eyes
and drove away. Not very far from the cottage I
met Foster walking sturdily between the dripping
hedges with his collie at his heels.
"'Do you know where your daughter is?' I
asked.
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: the orthodox from the unorthodox, the truly devout from the merely
sentimental, the Gospel from its counterfeits.
I should have thought that there never had been in Britain, since
the Reformation, a crisis at which young Englishwomen required
more careful cultivation on these matters; if at least they are to
be saved from making themselves and their families miserable; and
from ending--as I have known too many end--with broken hearts,
broken brains, broken health, and an early grave.
Take warning by what you see abroad. In every country where the
women are uneducated, unoccupied; where their only literature is
French novels or translations of them--in every one of those
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