| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: fidelity could not keep faithful was stung into passionate throbs
of interest concerning her by her avowal of the contrary.
He declared to himself that he had never known her dangerously
full compass if she were capable of such a reprisal; and,
melancholy as it may be to admit the fact, his own humiliation and
regret engendered a smouldering admiration of her.
He passed a month or two of great misery at Exbury, the place to
which he had retired--quite as much misery indeed as Grace, could
she have known of it, would have been inclined to inflict upon any
living creature, how much soever he might have wronged her. Then
a sudden hope dawned upon him; he wondered if her affirmation were
The Woodlanders |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: was the exact image on the wall of the whole, and of many of its
portions. But in the midst of this picture was another, - the
precise outline of a map which had hung on the wall before the
bookcase was built. We had all forgotten everything about the map
until we saw its photograph on the wall. Then we remembered it, as
some day or other we may remember a sin which has been built over
and covered up, when this lower universe is pulled away from before
the wall of Infinity, where the wrong-doing stands self-recorded.
The Professor lived in that house a long time, - not twenty years,
but pretty near it. When he entered that door, two shadows glided
over the threshold; five lingered in the doorway when he passed
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
