| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: She interrupted herself, and something like doubt dimmed for a
moment the fire of suppressed exaltation that had glowed in her
eyes and had illuminated the serene impassiveness of her features
with a ray of eager life during all that long day of excitement--
the day of joy and anxiety, of hope and terror, of vague grief
and indistinct delight. While the sun shone with that dazzling
light in which her love was born and grew till it possessed her
whole being, she was kept firm in her unwavering resolve by the
mysterious whisperings of desire which filled her heart with
impatient longing for the darkness that would mean the end of
danger and strife, the beginning of happiness, the fulfilling of
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: shed tears, and in both their hearts arose the desire of
lamentation. And they wailed aloud, more ceaselessly than
birds, sea-eagles or vultures of crooked claws, whose
younglings the country folk have taken from the nest, ere
yet they are fledged. Even so pitifully fell the tears
beneath their brows. And now would the sunlight have gone
down upon their sorrowing, had not Telemachus spoken to his
father suddenly:
'And in what manner of ship, father dear, did sailors at
length bring thee hither to Ithaca? and who did they avow
them to be? For in no wise, I deem, didst thou come hither
The Odyssey |
