| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: Alone, dismayed, quite bare of comforts all,
Tires with complaints the seas, the shores, the skies,
Till in sweet sleep against the morning bright
She fall at last; so mourned, so slept the knight.
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And clad in starry veil, amid his dream,
For whose sweet sake he mourned, appeared the maid,
Fairer than erst, yet with that heavenly beam.
Not out of knowledge was her lovely shade,
With looks of ruth her eyes celestial seem
To pity his sad plight, and thus she said,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: life. I had had the man and his surroundings with me ever since
my return from the eastern waters, some four years before the day
of which I speak.
It was in the front sitting-room of furnished apartments in a
Pimlico square that they first began to live again with a
vividness and poignancy quite foreign to our former real
intercourse. I had been treating myself to a long stay on shore,
and in the necessity of occupying my mornings, Almayer (that old
acquaintance) came nobly to the rescue. Before long, as was only
proper, his wife and daughter joined him round my table and then
the rest of that Pantai band came full of words and gestures.
Some Reminiscences |
