| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty.
But even this is admitting more than is true, for I answer roundly,
that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more,
had no European power had any thing to do with her. The commerce,
by which she hath enriched herself, are the necessaries of life,
and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe.
But she has protected us, say some. That she has engrossed
us is true, and defended the continent at our expense as well
as her own is admitted, and she would have defended Turkey
from the same motive, viz. the sake of trade and dominion.
Alas, we have been long led away by ancient prejudices,
Common Sense |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: sprite-like being, and by the sardonic bitterness of the speech,
that he was unable to disentangle the significant fact from what
seemed but a piece of family history fired out at him without rhyme
or reason. Not at first. He was confounded and at the same time
he was impressed by the rapid forcible delivery, quite different
from the frothy excited loquacity of an Italian. So he stared
while the homunculus letting his cloak fall about him, aspired an
immense quantity of snuff out of the hollow of his palm.
"A mule," exclaimed Byrne seizing at last the real aspect of the
discourse. "You say he has got a mule? That's queer! Why did he
refuse to let me have it?"
Within the Tides |
