The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: gathered up into one sick sense of coming doom, and she
watched Mr. Royall in fascinated terror while he
pinched the cigars in successive boxes and unfolded his
evening paper with a steady hand.
Presently he turned and joined her. "You go right
along up to bed--I'm going to sit down here and have my
smoke," he said. He spoke as easily and naturally as
if they had been an old couple, long used to each
other's ways, and her contracted heart gave a flutter
of relief. She followed him to the lift, and he put
her in and enjoined the buttoned and braided boy to
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: there will be a ruling caste consisting chiefly of administrative
engineers, technicians, etc.; that is, we should get a form of
State economy based on a small group of a ruling caste
whose privilege in this case would be the management of the
workersand peasants." That criticism of individual control, from
a communist, goes a good deal further than most of the
criticism from people avowedly in opposition.] The enormous
importance attached by everybody to this question of individual
or collegiate control, may bejudged from the fact that at
every conference I attended, and every discussion to which
I listened, this point, which might seem of minor importance,
|