| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: reason. She made no answer, and in her face he saw conflict.
"Forgive me, if you dislike what I said," he said humbly.
He had spoken courteously, deferentially, yet so firmly, so
stubbornly, that for a long hwile she could make no answer.
"It's wrong, what you say, and I beg you, if you're a good man,
to forget what you've said, as I forget it," she said at last.
"Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever
forget..."
"Enough, enough!" she cried trying assiduously to give a stern
expression to her face, into which he was gazing greedily. And
clutching at the cold door post, she clamberred up the steps and
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: sharp pain shot through my left shoulder, but at the time I was
scarcely conscious of it as I picked myself up and leaped forward.
The end was in sight.
Just as I reached the foot of the spiral stairway I saw a
black form descending from it. That Inca never knew what hit him.
I did not use my spear; time was too precious. He disappeared in
the whirlpool beneath the base of the column through which Harry
and I had once miraculously escaped.
But despair filled my heart as, with my feet on the first step
of the spiral stairway, I cast a quick glance upward. The upper
half of the inside of the column was a raging furnace of fire. How
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