| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: think, and let us have anything better which you can suggest; and if you
think that I can be of any use, allow me to help you.
Simmias said: I must confess, Socrates, that doubts did arise in our
minds, and each of us was urging and inciting the other to put the question
which we wanted to have answered and which neither of us liked to ask,
fearing that our importunity might be troublesome under present at such a
time.
Socrates replied with a smile: O Simmias, what are you saying? I am not
very likely to persuade other men that I do not regard my present situation
as a misfortune, if I cannot even persuade you that I am no worse off now
than at any other time in my life. Will you not allow that I have as much
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: promised that I made a most excellent lunch.
I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited the
upper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I
had done my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar.
"Mr. Pyecraft?" said I, at the front door.
They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days.
"He expects me," said I, and they sent me up.
I rang the bell at the lattice-door upon the landing.
"He shouldn't have tried it, anyhow," I said to myself. "A man who
eats like a pig ought to look like a pig."
An obviously worthy woman, with an anxious face and a carelessly
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