| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: right away; the Eliots want 'em." His English was unaccented.
It was long since he had seen Italy.
She moved meekly behind the counter, and began work on the thick
shells. Tony stretched his long neck up the street.
"Mr. Tony, mama wants some charcoal." The very small voice at
his feet must have pleased him, for his black brows relaxed into
a smile, and he poked the little one's chin with a hard, dirty
finger, as he emptied the ridiculously small bucket of charcoal
into the child's bucket, and gave a banana for lagniappe.
The crackling of shells went on behind, and a stifled sob arose
as a bit of sharp edge cut into the thin, worn fingers that
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: people from growing rich by the sale of their timber. It would cost
enormous sums to either blast a channel out to sea or construct a way
to the interior. The roads from Christiana to Trondhjem all turn
toward the Strom-fiord, and cross the Sieg by a bridge some score of
miles above its fall into the bay. The country to the north, between
Jarvis and Trondhjem, is covered with impenetrable forests, while to
the south the Falberg is nearly as much separated from Christiana by
inaccessible precipices. The village of Jarvis might perhaps have
communicated with the interior of Norway and Sweden by the river Sieg;
but to do this and to be thus brought into contact with civilization,
the Strom-fiord needed the presence of a man of genius. Such a man did
Seraphita |
