| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: -in showing her what a husband might be. He had given her a
standard; it might be high, but it was unalterable. She didn't know
whether she could describe it, but Mr. Tottenham was different from
the kind of man you seemed to meet in India. He had his own ways of
looking at things, and he talked so well. He had given her an
ideal, and she intended to profit by it. To know that men like Mr.
Tottenham existed, and to marry any other kind would be an act of
folly which she did not intend to commit. No, Major the Hon. Hugh
Taverel did not come near it--very far short, indeed! He had talked
to her during the whole of dinner the night before about jackal-
hunting with a bobbery pack--not at all an elevated mind. Yes, he
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: Mrs Verloc in the kitchen that "there was the master come back."
Winnie came no farther than the inner shop door.
"You'll want some breakfast," she said from a distance.
Mr Verloc moved his hands slightly, as if overcome by an impossible
suggestion. But once enticed into the parlour he did not reject
the food set before him. He ate as if in a public place, his hat
pushed off his forehead, the skirts of his heavy overcoat hanging
in a triangle on each side of the chair. And across the length of
the table covered with brown oil-cloth Winnie, his wife, talked
evenly at him the wifely talk, as artfully adapted, no doubt, to
the circumstances of this return as the talk of Penelope to the
The Secret Agent |
