| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: Terrible thirsty work. Ever since daylight had been exploring
the islands round his ship.
"What was that for--fun?" I asked, with an appearance of polite interest.
"No!" He sighed. "Painful duty."
As he persisted in his mumbling and I wanted my double to hear every word,
I hit upon the notion of informing him that I regretted to say I was
hard of hearing.
"Such a young man, too!" he nodded, keeping his smeary blue,
unintelligent eyes fastened upon me. "What was the cause of it--
some disease?" he inquired, without the least sympathy and as
if he thought that, if so, I'd got no more than I deserved.
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: often tramples upon the rights of the unreasoning brutes of
the valley and takes his prize by foul means if he cannot
gain it by fair.
"It is said that occasionally some deluded victim of
Barsoomian superstition will so far escape the clutches of
the countless enemies that beset his path from the moment that
he emerges from the subterranean passage through which the
Iss flows for a thousand miles before it enters the Valley Dor
as to reach the very walls of the Temple of Issus; but what
fate awaits one there not even the Holy Therns may guess,
for who has passed within those gilded walls never has
The Gods of Mars |
