| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: play of water; a spot lonely as the human soul and terrifying as
death.
Harry had gone to examine the hoofs of his mule, which had
limped slightly during the afternoon; Le Mire and I sat side by
side near the fire, gazing at the play of the flames. For some
minutes we had been silent.
"In Paris, perhaps--" she began suddenly, then stopped short
and became again silent.
But I was fast dropping into melancholy and wanted to hear her
voice, and I said:
"Well? In Paris--"
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: was NOT the natural order of things, if one's heart sickened at the
discomfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters, the stickiness
of one's socks, the lifts that never worked, the cold water, the gritty
soap, the cigarettes that came to pieces, the food with its strange evil
tastes? Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind
of ancestral memory that things had once been different?
He looked round the canteen again. Nearly everyone was ugly, and would
still have been ugly even if dressed otherwise than in the uniform blue
overalls. On the far side of the room, sitting at a table alone, a small,
curiously beetle-like man was drinking a cup of coffee, his little eyes
darting suspicious glances from side to side. How easy it was, thought
1984 |
