| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: yesterday, who to-day seemed to him much to be pitied, in the
corridor, and asked him where those prisoners who had been
sentenced were kept, and to whom one had to apply for permission
to visit them. The usher told him that the condemned prisoners
were kept in different places, and that, until they received
their sentence in its final form, the permission to visit them
depended on the president. "I'll come and call you myself, and
take you to the president after the session. The president is not
even here at present. After the session! And now please come in;
we are going to commence."
Nekhludoff thanked the usher for his kindness, and went into the
Resurrection |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: "Unless you manage to recover him before tomorrow,"
I assented, dispassionately. . . . "I mean, alive."
He mumbled something which I really did not catch, and I turned my ear
to him in a puzzled manner. He fairly bawled:
"The land--I say, the mainland is at least seven miles off my anchorage."
"About that."
My lack of excitement, of curiosity, of surprise, of any
sort of pronounced interest, began to arouse his distrust.
But except for the felicitous pretense of deafness I had not tried
to pretend anything. I had felt utterly incapable of playing
the part of ignorance properly, and therefore was afraid to try.
The Secret Sharer |
