| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: his eyes roamed afar, lost in an air of wild surprise,
as though he had never seen such a sight before.
And probably he had not. As far as I could make
out, he had been hustled together with many others
on board an emigrant-ship lying at the mouth of
the Elbe, too bewildered to take note of his sur-
roundings, too weary to see anything, too anxious
to care. They were driven below into the 'tween-
deck and battened down from the very start. It
was a low timber dwelling--he would say--with
wooden beams overhead, like the houses in his coun-
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: distance, when presently a young man of well-to-do appearance, who had
been leaning on the pole of a wagon and smoking his pipe, approached
her, and asked her for a dance. He treated her to cider and cake,
bought her a silk shawl, and then, thinking she had guessed his
purpose, offered to see her home. When they came to the end of a field
he threw her down brutally. But she grew frightened and screamed, and
he walked off.
One evening, on the road leading to Beaumont, she came upon a wagon
loaded with hay, and when she overtook it, she recognised Theodore. He
greeted her calmly, and asked her to forget what had happened between
them, as it "was all the fault of the drink."
A Simple Soul |
