| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: nursing a rage of another sort that I tried NOT to show him.
The whole business proved the first of a series of phenomena so
strangely interlaced that, taken together - which was how I had to
take them - they form as good an illustration as I can recall of
the manner in which, for the good of his soul doubtless, fate
sometimes deals with a man's avidity. These incidents certainly
had larger bearings than the comparatively meagre consequence we
are here concerned with - though I feel that consequence also a
thing to speak of with some respect. It's mainly in such a light,
I confess, at any rate, that the ugly fruit of my exile is at this
hour present to me. Even at first indeed the spirit in which my
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: stopped and bent over as though to tie his shoe.
This brought the negro a few steps in front of his companion.
That which then followed happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly,
so swiftly, that Tom Chist had hardly time to realize what it all
meant before it was over. As the negro passed him the white man
arose suddenly and silently erect, and Tom Chist saw the white
moonlight glint upon the blade of a great dirk knife which he now
held in his hand. He took one, two silent, catlike steps behind
the unsuspecting negro. Then there was a sweeping flash of the
blade in the pallid light, and a blow, the thump of which Tom
could distinctly hear even from where he lay stretched out upon
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
