| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: "'Oh! There's no one,' she said, turning away slowly.
"She was so distant with him that evening that Davidson from a
sense of delicacy made up his mind to say good-bye to her at once
and go and sleep on board. He felt very miserable and, strangely
enough, more on his own account than on account of his wife. She
seemed to him much more offended than grieved.
"Three weeks later, having collected a good many cases of old
dollars (they were stowed aft in the lazarette with an iron bar and
a padlock securing the hatch under his cabin-table), yes, with a
bigger lot than he had expected to collect, he found himself
homeward bound and off the entrance of the creek where Bamtz lived
Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: "I shall have to carry this off to the study, I've got a lot of
work to-night."
Alone in the study he cursed his cowardice. What was it that had
withheld him? A certain bright unapproachableness seemed to keep
him at arm's length. She was not the kind of woman whose
compassion could be circumvented; there was no chance of slipping
past the outposts; he would never take her by surprise. Well--why
not face her, then? What he shrank from could be no worse than
what he was enduring. He had pushed back his chair and turned to
go upstairs when a new expedient presented itself. What if,
instead of telling her, he were to let her find out for herself
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