| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: surrender. "It WOULD be the worst," she finally let herself say.
"I mean the thing I've never said."
It hushed him a moment. "More monstrous than all the monstrosities
we've named?"
"More monstrous. Isn't that what you sufficiently express," she
asked, "in calling it the worst?"
Marcher thought. "Assuredly--if you mean, as I do, something that
includes all the loss and all the shame that are thinkable."
"It would if it SHOULD happen," said May Bartram. "What we're
speaking of, remember, is only my idea."
"It's your belief," Marcher returned. "That's enough for me. I
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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: is hysteria, and that no man worthy of the name ever admits to it.
Also, as McKnight says, it sounds like a tank drama. Just as the
revolving saw is about to cut the hero into stove lengths. the
second villain blows up the sawmill. The hero goes up through the
roof and alights on the bank of a stream at the feet of his lady
love, who is making daisy chains.
Nevertheless, when I was safely home again, with Mrs. Klopton
brewing strange drinks that came in paper packets from the pharmacy,
and that smelled to heaven, I remember staggering to the door and
closing it, and then going back to bed and howling out the absurdity
and the madness of the whole thing. And while I laughed my very
The Man in Lower Ten |
