| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Oft too comes looming vast along the sky
A march of waters; mustering from above,
The clouds roll up the tempest, heaped and grim
With angry showers: down falls the height of heaven,
And with a great rain floods the smiling crops,
The oxen's labour: now the dikes fill fast,
And the void river-beds swell thunderously,
And all the panting firths of Ocean boil.
The Sire himself in midnight of the clouds
Wields with red hand the levin; through all her bulk
Earth at the hurly quakes; the beasts are fled,
Georgics |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: go, nor backward. Right there, while I gazed upon it, it faded
away, ceased to be. I didn't die, but I swear, from what I
experienced in those few succeeding moments, that I know full well
that men can die of fright. I stood there, knife in hand, swaying
automatically to the roll of the ship, paralysed with fear. Had
the Bricklayer suddenly seized my throat with corporeal fingers
and proceeded to throttle me, it would have been no more than I
expected. Dead men did rise up, and that would be the most likely
thing the malignant Bricklayer would do.
But he didn't seize my throat. Nothing happened. And, since
nature abhors a status, I could not remain there in the one place
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