| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: The day was declining; a day sick and damp.
In a blank ghostly glare shone the bleak ghostly camp
Of the English. Alone in his dim, spectral tent
(Himself the wan spectre of youth), with eyes bent
On the daylight departing, the sick man was sitting
Upon his low pallet. These thoughts, vaguely flitting,
Cross'd the silence between him and death, which seem'd near,
--"Pain o'erreaches itself, so is balk'd! else, how bear
This intense and intolerable solitude,
With its eye on my heart and its hand on my blood?
Pulse by pulse! Day goes down: yet she comes not again.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: he is, attending mass, in the chapel of the Virgin."
D'Artagnan nearly jumped for joy; he had despaired of
finding Bazin, but now, he thought, since he held one end of
the thread he would be pretty sure to reach the other end.
He knelt down just opposite the chapel in order not to lose
sight of his man; and as he had almost forgotten his prayers
and had omitted to take a book with him, he made use of his
time in gazing at Bazin.
Bazin wore his dress, it may be observed, with equal dignity
and saintly propriety. It was not difficult to understand
that he had gained the crown of his ambition and that the
Twenty Years After |
