| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: learned astronomers that they have never ventured to make the incident
public, although long after the boy had darted away into the east they
argued together concerning the marvelous and incomprehensible vision.
Afterward they secretly engrossed the circumstance upon their records,
but resolved never to mention it in public, lest their wisdom and
veracity should be assailed by the skeptical.
Meantime Rob rose to a higher altitude, and sped swiftly across the
great continent. By noon he sighted Chicago, and after a brief
inspection of the place from the air determined to devote at least an
hour to forming the acquaintance of this most wonderful and
cosmopolitan city.
The Master Key |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: vacancy, to seize, he would presently have been aware of having
clutched it as he might under a shock at home have clutched the
nearest chair-back. He had been surprised at any rate - of this he
WAS aware - into something unprecedented since his original
appropriation of the place; he had closed his eyes, held them
tight, for a long minute, as with that instinct of dismay and that
terror of vision. When he opened them the room, the other
contiguous rooms, extraordinarily, seemed lighter - so light,
almost, that at first he took the change for day. He stood firm,
however that might be, just where he had paused; his resistance had
helped him - it was as if there were something he had tided over.
|
