| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: satisfied smile that crossed his thin lips? I do not know;
but at least he did not weep.
"You always have been curious, sir, about the great unknown
beyond thirty," he said. "You are in a good way to have
your curiosity satisfied." And then I could not mistake the
slight sneer that curved his upper lip. There must have
been a trace of disrespect in his tone or manner which
escaped me, for Alvarez turned upon him like a flash.
"When Lieutenant Turck crosses thirty," he said, "we shall
all cross with him, and God help the officer or the man who
reproaches him!"
Lost Continent |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: If ye had been younger, I would have wheepit ye for this rideeculous
exhibeetion. The way it is, I have just to grin and bear. But one
thing is to be clearly understood. As a faither, I must grin and bear
it; but if I had been the Lord Advocate instead of the Lord Justice-
Clerk, son or no son, Mr. Erchibald Weir would have been in a jyle the
night."
Archie was now dominated. Lord Hermiston was coarse and cruel; and yet
the son was aware of a bloomless nobility, an ungracious abnegation of
the man's self in the man's office. At every word, this sense of the
greatness of Lord Hermiston's spirit struck more home; and along with it
that of his own impotence, who had struck - and perhaps basely struck -
|
