| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: names with much sweat and correction in a little book. At first I
couldn't find the source of the high, groaning words that echoed
clamorously through the bare garage--then I saw Wilson standing on the
raised threshold of his office, swaying back and forth and holding to
the doorposts with both hands. Some man was talking to him in a low
voice and attempting, from time to time, to lay a hand on his shoulder,
but Wilson neither heard nor saw. His eyes would drop slowly from the
swinging light to the laden table by the wall, and then jerk back to
the light again, and he gave out incessantly his high, horrible call:
"Oh, my Ga-od! Oh, my Ga-od! oh, Ga-od! oh, my Ga-od!"
Presently Tom lifted his head with a jerk and, after staring around the
The Great Gatsby |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: as they, if their adverse hap had not cut them off in the
first sally of their arms? Amongst so many and so great
dangers, I do not remember to have anywhere read that Caesar
was ever wounded; a thousand have fallen in less dangers than
the least of these he went through. A great many brave
actions must be expected to be performed without witness, for
one that comes to some notice. A man is not always at the top
of a breach, or at the head of an army in the sight of his
general, as upon a platform. He is often surprised between
the hedge and the ditch; he must run the hazard of his life
against a henroost; he must dislodge four rascally musketeers
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