| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: "You have no opinion about me one way or the other?"
"Yes, I suppose I have an opinion--" she hesitated.
He controlled his wish to ask her to explain herself, and much to his
pleasure she went on, appearing to search her mind.
"I thought that you criticized me--perhaps disliked me. I thought of
you as a person who judges--"
"No; I'm a person who feels," he said, in a low voice.
"Tell me, then, what has made you do this?" she asked, after a break.
He told her in an orderly way, betokening careful preparation, all
that he had meant to say at first; how he stood with regard to his
brothers and sisters; what his mother had said, and his sister Joan
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: ellipse, of which the earth occupies one of the _foci_. It was
also well understood that it is farthest removed from the earth
during its _apogee_, and approaches most nearly to it at its _perigee_.
Such was then the extent of knowledge possessed by every
American on the subject, and of which no one could decently
profess ignorance. Still, while these principles were being
rapidly disseminated many errors and illusory fears proved less
easy to eradicate.
For instance, some worthy persons maintained that the moon was
an ancient comet which, in describing its elongated orbit round
the sun, happened to pass near the earth, and became confined
From the Earth to the Moon |
