The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will
be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties
and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a
dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out
the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons
of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able
to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: goaded out at the point of the sword, their backs bending beneath the
load of tents, while there were numbers of serving-men and water-
carriers, emaciated, jaundiced with fever, and filthy with vermin, the
scum of the Carthaginian populace, who had attached themselves to the
Barbarians.
When they had passed, the gates were shut behind them, but the people
did not descend from the walls. The army soon spread over the breadth
of the isthmus.
It parted into unequal masses. Then the lances appeared like tall
blades of grass, and finally all was lost in a train of dust; those of
the soldiers who looked back towards Carthage could now only see its
Salammbo |