| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The White Moll by Frank L. Packard: But they let him out again."
"Dat's de stuff!" applauded Rhoda Gray earnestly. "Where is he, den?"
Shluker shook his head.
"He didn't say," said Shluker.
"He didn't say?" echoed Rhoda Gray, a little tartly. "Wot d'youse
mean, he didn't say? Have youse seen him?"
Shluker jerked his hand toward the telephone instrument on the desk.
"He was talkin' to me a little while ago."
"Well, den" - Rhoda Gray risked a more peremptory tone - "where is he?"
Shluker shook his head again.
"I dunno," he said. "I'm tellin' you, he didn't say."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: his victim to become a real test for him; since he had quite put it
to himself from the first that, oh distinctly! he could "cultivate"
his whole perception. He had felt it as above all open to
cultivation - which indeed was but another name for his manner of
spending his time. He was bringing it on, bringing it to
perfection, by practice; in consequence of which it had grown so
fine that he was now aware of impressions, attestations of his
general postulate, that couldn't have broken upon him at once.
This was the case more specifically with a phenomenon at last quite
frequent for him in the upper rooms, the recognition - absolutely
unmistakeable, and by a turn dating from a particular hour, his
|