| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: Stepan Arkadyevitch comprehended, looked at him, but said
nothing.
Levin was grateful to Oblonsky for noticing, with his
never-failing tact, that he dreaded conversation about the
Shtcherbatskys, and so saying nothing about them. But now Levin
waslonging to find out what was tormenting him so, yet he had not
the courage to begin.
"Come, tell me how things are going with you," said Levin,
bethinking himself that it was not nice of him to think only of
himself.
Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes sparkled merrily.
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: The Alexandrines combined a great love of learning with an
ignorance of the true principles of research, an enthusiastic
spirit for accumulating materials with a wonderful incapacity to
use them. Not among the hot sands of Egypt, or the Sophists of
Athens, but from the very heart of Greece rises the man of genius
on whose influence in the evolution of the philosophy of history I
have a short time ago dwelt. Born in the serene and pure air of
the clear uplands of Arcadia, Polybius may be said to reproduce in
his work the character of the place which gave him birth. For, of
all the historians - I do not say of antiquity but of all time -
none is more rationalistic than he, none more free from any belief
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