| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: fever, and I turned to where Thomas lingered in the hallway.
"Will you tell me what you mean, Thomas Johnson, by not telling
me this before?" I demanded indignantly.
Thomas quailed.
"Mis' Louise wouldn' let me," he said earnestly. "I wanted to.
She ought to 'a' had a doctor the night she came, but she wouldn'
hear to it. Is she--is she very bad, Mis' Innes?"
"Bad enough," I said coldly. "Send Mr. Innes up."
Halsey came up the stairs slowly, looking rather interested and
inclined to be amused. For a moment he could not see anything
distinctly in the darkened room; he stopped, glanced at Rosie and
The Circular Staircase |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: palpitating.
McTeague returned to his work. At six in the morning his
shift was taken off, and he went out of the mine and back to
the bunk house. All day long he slept, flung at length upon
the strong-smelling blankets--slept the dreamless sleep of
exhaustion, crushed and overpowered with the work, flat and
prone upon his belly, till again in the evening the cook
sounded the alarm upon the crowbar bent into a triangle.
Every alternate week the shifts were changed. The second
week McTeague's shift worked in the daytime and slept at
night. Wednesday night of this second week the dentist woke
McTeague |
