| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anthem by Ayn Rand: save in toiling for other men."
Then Collective 0-0009 rose and pointed at our box.
"This thing," they said, "must be destroyed."
And all the others cried as one:
"It must be destroyed!"
Then we leapt to the table.
We seized our box, we shoved them
aside, and we ran to the window. We
turned and we looked at them for the last
time, and a rage, such as it is not fit for
humans to know, choked our voice in our throat.
 Anthem |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: the balmy air of August night, dreaming along Hennepin and
Nicollet Avenues, through the gay crowd. Amory wondered how
people could fail to notice that he was a boy marked for glory,
and when faces of the throng turned toward him and ambiguous eyes
stared into his, he assumed the most romantic of expressions and
walked on the air cushions that lie on the asphalts of fourteen.
Always, after he was in bed, there were voicesindefinite, fading,
enchantingjust outside his window, and before he fell asleep he
would dream one of his favorite waking dreams, the one about
becoming a great half-back, or the one about the Japanese
invasion, when he was rewarded by being made the youngest general
 This Side of Paradise |