| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: with Bessie Alden are the only ones that have a place in our record.
"Of course I needn't assure you," he said, "that if you should come to England
next year, I expect to be the first person that you inform of it."
Bessie Alden looked at him a little, and she smiled.
"Oh, if we come to London," she answered, "I should think you
would hear of it."
Percy Beaumont returned with his cousin, and his sense of duty
compelled him, one windless afternoon, in mid-Atlantic, to say
to Lord Lambeth that he suspected that the duchess's telegram was
in part the result of something he himself had written to her.
"I wrote to her--as I explicitly notified you I had promised to do--
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: (A privilege which none but freemen share).
Slight were his arms, a sword and silver shield:
No marks of honor charg'd its empty field.
Light as he fell, so light the youth arose,
And rising, found himself amidst his foes;
Nor flight was left, nor hopes to force his way.
Embolden'd by despair, he stood at bay;
And- like a stag, whom all the troop surrounds
Of eager huntsmen and invading hounds-
Resolv'd on death, he dissipates his fears,
And bounds aloft against the pointed spears:
Aeneid |
