| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: worthy food into his mouth. But after dropping
his fork twice and generally making a failure of
it, he had sat still with an air of intense mortifica-
tion combined with a ghastly glazed stare. Both
Giles and I had avoided looking his way at
table.
On the verandah he stopped short on purpose to
address to us anxiously a long remark which I
failed to understand completely. It sounded like
some horrible unknown language. But when
Captain Giles, after only an instant for reflection,
The Shadow Line |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: Who was his secret enemy?
Something touched me lightly on the shoulder.
I turned, with my heart fluttering like a child's. This night's
work had imposed a severe strain even upon my callous nerves.
A girl wrapped in a hooded opera-cloak stood at my elbow,
and, as she glanced up at me, I thought that I never had seen
a face so seductively lovely nor of so unusual a type.
With the skin of a perfect blonde, she had eyes and lashes
as black as a Creole's, which, together with her full red lips,
told me that this beautiful stranger, whose touch had so startled me,
was not a child of our northern shores.
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
