| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: members the likenesses of gods. It would be equally reasonable
to compare it to one of those enforced meetings upon the
mountain-tops that must have occurred in the opening phases of
the Deluge. The strength of the council lay not in itself but in
the circumstances that had quickened its intelligence, dispelled
its vanities, and emancipated it from traditional ambitions and
antagonisms. It was stripped of the accumulation of centuries, a
naked government with all that freedom of action that nakedness
affords. And its problems were set before it with a plainness
that was out of all comparison with the complicated and
perplexing intimations of the former time.
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was
with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of
happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense
and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with
which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to
realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue,
to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a
mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected
upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his
heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed
those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical
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