| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart: She--well, she won't go. They're going to open the country house
and stay there."
A few days previously this would have been sad news for me, owing
to not being allowed to go to the Country Club except in the
mornings, and no chance to meet any new people, and no bathing save
in the usual tub. But now I thriled at the information, because the
Grays have a place near the Club also.
For a moment I closed my eyes and saw myself, all in white and
decked with flours, wandering through the meadows and on the links
with a certain Person whose name I need not write, having allready
related my feelings toward him.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: much as the others. He detected a degrading quality in the touches
of age which every day adds to a human countenance. They moved and
disturbed him, like the signs of a horrible inward travail which
was frightfully apparent to the fresh eye he had brought from his
isolation in Malata, where he had settled after five strenuous
years of adventure and exploration.
"It's a fact," he said, "that when I am at home in Malata I see no
one consciously. I take the plantation boys for granted."
"Well, and we here take the people in the streets for granted. And
that's sanity."
The visitor said nothing to this for fear of engaging a discussion.
Within the Tides |
