| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: "Then let him know, one claims his intercession, who is his worst
foe and his best friend," answered Ranald.
"Truly I shall desire to carry a less questionable message,"
answered Dalgetty, "Sir Duncan is not a person to play at reading
riddles with."
"Craven Saxon," said the prisoner, "tell him I am the raven that,
fifteen years since, stooped on his tower of strength and the
pledges he had left there--I am the hunter that found out the
wolfs den on the rock, and destroyed his offspring--I am the
leader of the band which surprised Ardenvohr yesterday was
fifteen years, and gave his four children to the sword."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: pour into the water.
Mrs. Dallas was there, I think. Of course, I suppose she must have
been; and there was a woman in yellow: I took her in to dinner, and
I remember she loosened my clams for me so I could get them. But
the only real person at the table was a girl across in white, a
sublimated young woman who was as brilliant as I was stupid, who
never by any chance looked directly at me, and who appeared and
disappeared across the candles and orchids in a sort of halo of
radiance.
When the dinner had progressed from salmon to roast, and the
conversation had done the same thing - from fish to scandal - the
The Man in Lower Ten |
