| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: Yet even in our best regulated and most approximately Circular
families I cannot say that the ideal of family life is so high
as with you in Spaceland. There is peace, in so far as the absence
of slaughter may be called by that name, but there is necessarily
little harmony of tastes or pursuits; and the cautious wisdom
of the Circles has ensured safety at the cost of domestic comfort.
In every Circular or Polygonal household it has been a habit
from time immemorial -- and now has become a kind of instinct among
the women of our higher classes -- that the mothers and daughters
should constantly keep their eyes and mouths towards their husband
and his male friends; and for a lady in a family of distinction
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: There is something so kindred in our minds that they seem to me like
two editions of the same book. You see what a literary tendency I have
developed! We both have the habit, or the gift, of looking at every
subject broadly, of taking in all its points of view, and the proof we
are constantly giving ourselves of the singleness of our inward vision
is an ever-new pleasure. We have actually come to look on this
community of mind as a pledge of love; and if it ever failed us, it
would mean as much to us as would a breach of fidelity in an ordinary
home.
My life, full as it is of pleasures, would seem to you, nevertheless,
extremely laborious. To begin with, my dear, you must know that
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