| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: wharf.
The Moral Sentiment
A PUGILIST met the Moral Sentiment of the Community, who was
carrying a hat-box. "What have you in the hat-box, my friend?"
inquired the Pugilist.
"A new frown," was the answer. "I am bringing it from the frownery
- the one over there with the gilded steeple."
"And what are you going to do with the nice new frown?" the
Pugilist asked.
"Put down pugilism - if I have to wear it night and day," said the
Moral Sentiment of the Community, sternly.
Fantastic Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: Apostle, fright and surprise upon the countenances of the beholders
in the piece of Ananias; all these describe themselves so naturally
that you cannot but seem to discover something of the like
passions, even in seeing them.
In the other there is the boldness and courage with which St. Paul
undertook to talk to a set of men who, he knew, despised all the
world, as thinking themselves able to teach them anything. In the
audience there is anticipating pride and conceit in some, a smile
or fleer of contempt in others, but a kind of sensible conviction,
though crushed in its beginning, on the faces of the rest; and all
together appear confounded, but have little to say, and know
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