| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: perhaps only one truth for which he was quite unprepared: he would have
been quite unprepared to learn that Kirstie hated him. He thought maid
and master were well matched; hard, bandy, healthy, broad Scots folk,
without a hair of nonsense to the pair of them. And the fact was that
she made a goddess and an only child of the effete and tearful lady; and
even as she waited at table her hands would sometimes itch for my lord's
ears.
Thus, at least, when the family were at Hermiston, not only my lord, but
Mrs. Weir too, enjoyed a holiday. Free from the dreadful looking-for of
the miscarried dinner, she would mind her seam, read her piety books,
and take her walk (which was my lord's orders), sometimes by herself,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs: to open a door, but neither did she know what I meant by
knob.
I put a bullet in the spine of the approaching lion and
leaped to Victory's side. The door resisted my first
efforts to swing it inward. Rusted hinges and swollen wood
held it tightly closed. But at last it gave, and just as
another lion mounted to the top of the stairway it swung in,
and I pushed Victory across the threshold.
Then I turned to meet the renewed attack of the savage foe.
One lion fell in his tracks, another stumbled to my very
feet, and then I leaped within and slammed the portal to.
Lost Continent |
