| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: "I know," she said, "I know perfectly well--but I can't help the way I'm
built...Are you going?"
He put on his gloves.
"Well," he said, "what's going to happen to us now?"
Again she shrugged her shoulders.
"I haven't the slightest idea. I never have--just let things occur."
...
"All alone?" cried Victor. "Has Max been here?"
"He only stayed a moment, and wouldn't even have tea. I sent him home to
change his clothes...He was frightfully boring."
"You poor darling, your hair's coming down. I'll fix it, stand still a
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: almost inseparable, indeed. Then the intimacy had come suddenly
to an end. When they met in society now, it was only Dorian
Gray who smiled: Alan Campbell never did.
He was an extremely clever young man, though he had no real
appreciation of the visible arts, and whatever little sense
of the beauty of poetry he possessed he had gained entirely
from Dorian. His dominant intellectual passion was for science.
At Cambridge he had spent a great deal of his time working
in the laboratory, and had taken a good class in the Natural
Science Tripos of his year. Indeed, he was still devoted
to the study of chemistry, and had a laboratory of his
 The Picture of Dorian Gray |