| 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: "Oh, please, don't trouble about me," answered Anna, looking
intently into Dolly's face, trying to make out whether there had
been a reconciliation or not.
"It will be lighter for you here," answered her sister-in-law.
"I assure you that I sleep evrywhere, and always like a marmot."
"What's the question?" inquired Stepan Arkadyevitch, coming out
of his room and addressing his wife.
From his tone both Kitty and Anny knew that a reconciliation had
taken place.
"I want to move Anna downstairs, but we must hand up blinds. No
one knows how to do it; I must see to it myself," answered Dolly
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: geography are intermingled ('Why, here be truths!'): (3) the extreme
minuteness with which the numbers are given, as in the Old Epic poetry:
(4) the ingenious reason assigned for the Greek names occurring in the
Egyptian tale: (5) the remark that the armed statue of Athena indicated
the common warrior life of men and women: (6) the particularity with which
the third deluge before that of Deucalion is affirmed to have been the
great destruction: (7) the happy guess that great geological changes have
been effected by water: (8) the indulgence of the prejudice against
sailing beyond the Columns, and the popular belief of the shallowness of
the ocean in that part: (9) the confession that the depth of the ditch in
the Island of Atlantis was not to be believed, and 'yet he could only
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