The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: (from a bachelor uncle who had made some money
in the coal business) he threw up his command of
an East-coast collier with a feeling as though he
had escaped from the galleys. After all these years
he might have counted on the fingers of his two
hands all the days he had been out of sight of Eng-
land. He had never known what it was to be out
of soundings. "I have never been further than
eighty fathoms from the land," was one of his
boasts.
Bessie Carvil heard all these things. In front of
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly
luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung
about and enshrouded the mansion.
"You must not--you shall not behold this!" said I,
shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence,
from the window to a seat. "These appearances, which bewilder
you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon--or it may be
that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the
tarn. Let us close this casement;--the air is chilling and
dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favourite romances.
I will read, and you shall listen;--and so we will pass away this
The Fall of the House of Usher |