| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: frown. She ate with her knife, and after pushing away her plate
Wilbur observed that she drank half a tumbler of whiskey and
water.
The conversation between the two was tame enough. There was no
common ground upon which they could meet. To her father's death--
no doubt an old matter even before her rescue--she made no
allusion. Her attitude toward Wilbur was one of defiance and
suspicion. Only once did she relax:
"How did you come to be aboard here with these rat-eaters--you're
no sailor?" she said abruptly.
"Huh!" laughed Wilbur, mirthlessly; "huh! I was shanghaied."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: SCENE: A newly-erected Palaestra outside the walls of Athens.
I was going from the Academy straight to the Lyceum, intending to take the
outer road, which is close under the wall. When I came to the postern gate
of the city, which is by the fountain of Panops, I fell in with
Hippothales, the son of Hieronymus, and Ctesippus the Paeanian, and a
company of young men who were standing with them. Hippothales, seeing me
approach, asked whence I came and whither I was going.
I am going, I replied, from the Academy straight to the Lyceum.
Then come straight to us, he said, and put in here; you may as well.
Who are you, I said; and where am I to come?
He showed me an enclosed space and an open door over against the wall. And
Lysis |
