| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: carried out my case just as well. Your modern commerce is no
more buying and selling than sculpture. It's mercy--it's
salvation. It's rescue work! It takes all sorts of fallen
commodities by the hand and raises them. Cana isn't in it. You
turn water--into Tono-Bungay."
"Tono-Bungay's all right," said my uncle, suddenly grave. "We
aren't talking of Tono-Bungay."
"Your nephew, sir, is hard; he wants everything to go to a sort
of predestinated end; he's a Calvinist of Commerce. Offer him a
dustbin full of stuff; he calls it refuse--passes by on the other
side. Now YOU, sir you'd make cinders respect themselves."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: an inn.
HASTINGS. As you say, we passengers are to be taxed to pay all these
fineries. I have often seen a good sideboard, or a marble
chimney-piece, though not actually put in the bill, inflame a
reckoning confoundedly.
MARLOW. Travellers, George, must pay in all places: the only
difference is, that in good inns you pay dearly for luxuries; in bad
inns you are fleeced and starved.
HASTINGS. You have lived very much among them. In truth, I have been
often surprised, that you who have seen so much of the world, with your
natural good sense, and your many opportunities, could never yet
 She Stoops to Conquer |