| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: In short, Mr. Bambridge was a man of pleasure and a gay companion.
Fred was subtle, and did not tell his friends that he was going
to Houndsley bent on selling his horse: he wished to get indirectly
at their genuine opinion of its value, not being aware that a
genuine opinion was the last thing likely to be extracted from
such eminent critics. It was not Mr. Bambridge's weakness to be
a gratuitous flatterer. He had never before been so much struck
with the fact that this unfortunate bay was a roarer to a degree
which required the roundest word for perdition to give you any idea of it.
"You made a bad hand at swapping when you went to anybody
but me, Vincy! Why, you never threw your leg across a finer
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: everything, as if they were looking for something to take care of.
All her movements were sharp, decided, and energetic; and,
though she was never much of a talker, her words were remarkably
direct, and to the purpose, when she did speak.
In her habits, she was a living impersonation of order, method,
and exactness. In punctuality, she was as inevitable as a clock,
and as inexorable as a railroad engine; and she held in most
decided contempt and abomination anything of a contrary character.
The great sin of sins, in her eyes,--the sum of all
evils,--was expressed by one very common and important word in her
vocabulary--"shiftlessness." Her finale and ultimatum of contempt
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
