| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: business you had better go to the devil."
"I don't know him personally," I said. "But after this I wouldn't
mind calling on him. It would be refreshing to meet a gentleman."
He followed me, growling behind my back:
"The impudence! I've a good mind to write to your owners what I
think of you."
I turned on him for a moment:
"As it happens I don't care. For my part I assure you I won't even
take the trouble to mention you to them."
He stopped at the door of his office while I traversed the littered
anteroom. I think he was somewhat taken aback.
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: Mississippi; the whole aspect of the country shows the powerful
effects of water, both by its fertility and by its barrenness.
The waters of the primeval ocean accumulated enormous beds of
vegetable mould in the valley, which they levelled as they
retired. Upon the right shore of the river are seen immense
plains, as smooth as if the husbandman had passed over them with
his roller. As you approach the mountains the soil becomes more
and more unequal and sterile; the ground is, as it were, pierced
in a thousand places by primitive rocks, which appear like the
bones of a skeleton whose flesh is partly consumed. The surface
of the earth is covered with a granite sand and huge irregular
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