| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: I lay still and somewhat dazed, but before
long heard West’s rap on my door. He was clad in dressing-gown
and slippers, and had in his hands a revolver and an electric
flashlight. From the revolver I knew that he was thinking more
of the crazed Italian than of the police.
"We’d better both
go," he whispered. "It wouldn’t do not to answer it anyway, and
it may be a patient -- it would be like one of those fools to
try the back door."
So we both went down the stairs on tiptoe,
with a fear partly justified and partly that which comes only
Herbert West: Reanimator |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: 'If the man was drunk, and the boy knew it, the boy murdered that man.
This is certain.'
Faint, sickening sensations crept along all the fibers of my body,
and I seemed to know how a person feels who hears his death sentence
pronounced from the bench. I waited to hear what my brother would say next.
I believed I knew what it would be, and I was right. He said--
'I know the boy.'
I had nothing to say; so I said nothing. I simply shuddered.
Then he added--
'Yes, before you got half through telling about the thing,
I knew perfectly well who the boy was; it was Ben Coontz! '
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