| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: and drenched the moor like rain; and this refreshed me for a
while. When we stopped to breathe, and I had time to see all
about me, the clearness and sweetness of the night, the shapes of
the hills like things asleep, and the fire dwindling away behind
us, like a bright spot in the midst of the moor, anger would come
upon me in a clap that I must still drag myself in agony and eat
the dust like a worm.
By what I have read in books, I think few that have held a pen
were ever really wearied, or they would write of it more
strongly. I had no care of my life, neither past nor future, and
I scarce remembered there was such a lad as David Balfour. I did
Kidnapped |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: now visible - first in the fact that it hadn't saved the poor boy,
who was clever, frail and foolish, from congestion of the lungs,
and second in the greater break with London to which the event
condemned me. I'm afraid that what was uppermost in my mind during
several anxious weeks was the sense that if we had only been in
Paris I might have run over to see Corvick. This was actually out
of the question from every point of view: my brother, whose
recovery gave us both plenty to do, was ill for three months,
during which I never left him and at the end of which we had to
face the absolute prohibition of a return to England. The
consideration of climate imposed itself, and he was in no state to
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