The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: one under the age of thirty.
[22] The Boule or Senate. See W. L. Newman, "Pol. Aristot." i. 326.
Soc. In making a purchase even, I am not to ask, what is the price of
this? if the vendor is under the age of thirty?
Cha. Tut, things of that sort: but you know, Socrates, that you have a
way of asking questions, when all the while you know how the matter
stands. Let us have no questions of that sort.
Soc. Nor answers either, I suppose, if the inquiry concerns what I
know, as, for instance, where does Charicles live? or where is Critias
to be found?
Oh yes, of course, things of that kind (replied Charicles), while
 The Memorabilia |
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: the compass during the past two days," I suggested. "Caprona
has been luring us upon her deadly rocks. Well, we'll accept
her challenge. We'll land upon Caprona. Along that long front
there must be a vulnerable spot. We will find it, Bradley, for
we must find it. We must find water on Caprona, or we must die."
And so we approached the coast upon which no living eyes had
ever rested. Straight from the ocean's depths rose towering
cliffs, shot with brown and blues and greens--withered moss
and lichen and the verdigris of copper, and everywhere the
rusty ocher of iron pyrites. The cliff-tops, though ragged,
were of such uniform height as to suggest the boundaries of
 The Land that Time Forgot |