| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: again, with the reflection that Eppie would be good without
fastening for the rest of the morning. He turned round again, and
was going to place her in her little chair near the loom, when she
peeped out at him with black face and hands again, and said, "Eppie
in de toal-hole!"
This total failure of the coal-hole discipline shook Silas's belief
in the efficacy of punishment. "She'd take it all for fun," he
observed to Dolly, "if I didn't hurt her, and that I can't do,
Mrs. Winthrop. If she makes me a bit o' trouble, I can bear it.
And she's got no tricks but what she'll grow out of."
"Well, that's partly true, Master Marner," said Dolly,
Silas Marner |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: smouldering jealousy increased by the fact that he had introduced
innovations David resented; had for instance moved Dick's desk
nearer the window, and instead of doing his own laboratory work
had what David considered a damnably lazy fashion of sending his
little tubes, carefully closed with cotton, to a hospital in town.
David found the days very long and infinitely sad. He wakened
each morning to renewed hope, watched for the postman from his
upper window, and for Lucy's step on the stairs with the mail.
His first glimpse of her always told him the story. At the
beginning he had insisted on talking about Dick, but he saw that
it hurt her, and of late they had fallen into the habit of long
The Breaking Point |
