| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: officer in command, accompanied by two men, walked up to the
front door. All the blinds on that side were down. The officer
told the servant who received him that he wanted to see his
master. He was answered that the master was away from home, which
was perfectly true.
I follow here the tale as told afterward by the servant to my
granduncle's friends and relatives, and as I have heard it
repeated.
On receiving this answer the Cossack officer, who had been
standing in the porch, stepped into the house.
"Where is the master gone, then?"
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were
buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers,
there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these
and security were within. Without was the "Red Death".
It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his
seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously
abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends
at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.
It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me
tell of the rooms in which it was held. These were seven--an
imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long
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