The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: reckon you have, you do seem to know powerful little about its
customs."
"Its customs!" says he. "Heaven is a large place, good friend.
Large empires have many and diverse customs. Even small dominions
have, as you doubtless know by what you have seen of the matter on
a small scale in the Wart. How can you imagine I could ever learn
the varied customs of the countless kingdoms of heaven? It makes
my head ache to think of it. I know the customs that prevail in
those portions inhabited by peoples that are appointed to enter by
my own gate - and hark ye, that is quite enough knowledge for one
individual to try to pack into his head in the thirty-seven
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: were more people infected and fell sick now, when there did not die
above a thousand or twelve hundred in a week, than there was when
there died five or six thousand a week, so entirely negligent were the
people at that time in the great and dangerous case of health and
infection, and so ill were they able to take or accept of the advice of
those who cautioned them for their good.
The people being thus returned, as it were, in general, it was very
strange to find that in their inquiring after their friends, some whole
families were so entirely swept away that there was no remembrance
of them left, neither was anybody to be found to possess or show any
title to that little they had left; for in such cases what was to be found
A Journal of the Plague Year |