| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: mudhole (it was what Davidson had sniffed just before) a couple of
filthy buffaloes uprose with loud snorts and lumbered off crashing
through the bushes, panic-struck by this apparition.
"The woman came forward, her arms extended, and laid her hands on
Davidson's shoulders, exclaiming: 'Why! You have hardly changed
at all. The same good Davy.' And she laughed a little wildly.
"This sound was to Davidson like a galvanic shock to a corpse. He
started in every muscle. 'Laughing Anne,' he said in an awe-struck
voice.
"'All that's left of her, Davy. All that's left of her.'
"Davidson looked up at the sky; but there was to be seen no balloon
Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: I've often been with her. . . . That's what's the matter with us.
. . . We don't _do_ things. What do you _do_?" she demanded,
looking at Rachel with a slightly ironical smile. Rachel had scarcely
listened to any of this, and her expression was vacant and unhappy.
She had conceived an equal dislike for Lillah Harrison and her work
in the Deptford Road, and for Evelyn M. and her profusion of love
affairs.
"I play," she said with an affection of stolid composure.
"That's about it!" Evelyn laughed. "We none of us do anything
but play. And that's why women like Lillah Harrison, who's worth
twenty of you and me, have to work themselves to the bone.
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