| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: The guileless peasant set down his buckets and considered. "Ah dunnot--"
"I ought to mention," the Professor hastily put in, "that whatever you
say will be used in evidence against you."
The guileless peasant instantly resumed his buckets. "Then ah says
nowt!" he answered briskly, and walked away at a great pace.
The children gazed sadly at the rapidly vanishing figure. "He goes
very quick!" the Professor said with a sigh. "But I know that was the
right thing to say. I've studied your English Laws. However, let's
ask this next man that's coming. He is not guileless, and he is not a
peasant--but I don't know that either point is of vital importance."
It was, in fact, the Honourable Eric Lindon, who had apparently
Sylvie and Bruno |
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: and rainbows; they are passionate after dreams and unconcerned
about realities; speech is a difficult art not wholly learned;
and there is nothing in their own tastes or purposes to teach
them what we mean by abstract truthfulness. When a bad writer
is inexact, even if he can look back on half a century of
years, we charge him with incompetence and not with
dishonesty. And why not extend the same allowance to
imperfect speakers? Let a stockbroker be dead stupid about
poetry, or a poet inexact in the details of business, and we
excuse them heartily from blame. But show us a miserable,
unbreeched, human entity, whose whole profession it is to take
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