| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: As rational, the human kind;
Reason, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it, if they can.
Wise Aristotle and Smiglesius,
By ratiocinations specious,
Have strove to prove with great precision,
With definition and division,
HOMO EST RATIONE PRAEDITUM;
But, for my soul, I cannot credit 'em.
And must, in spite of them, maintain
That man and all his ways are vain;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: forever contaminating his manners. He looked at me sheepishly
all the time, for he knew that no well-bred dog should eat at
table; but the poor fellow was so wasted from improper food that
I couldn't enjoy my own meal had he been denied an immediate share
in it; and anyway Lys wanted to feed him. So there you are.
Lys was coldly polite to me and sweetly gracious to Bradley
and Olson. She wasn't of the gushing type, I knew; so I didn't
expect much from her and was duly grateful for the few morsels of
attention she threw upon the floor to me. We had a pleasant
meal, with only one unfortunate occurrence--when Olson suggested
that possibly the creature we were eating was the same one that
The Land that Time Forgot |
