| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: world: but he got the three best things in the world into the
bargain - a good wife, and experience, and hope: while Prometheus
had just as much trouble, and a great deal more (as you will hear),
of his own making; with nothing beside, save fancies spun out of
his own brain, as a spider spins her web out of her stomach.
"And Prometheus kept on looking before him so far ahead, that as he
was running about with a box of lucifers (which were the only
useful things he ever invented, and do as much harm as good), he
trod on his own nose, and tumbled down (as most deductive
philosophers do), whereby he set the Thames on fire; and they have
hardly put it out again yet. So he had to be chained to the top of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: The benefit was in some measure mutual; for these cottages served him
as resting-places in his removals, and enabled him to travel untraced
and unmolested; and in the delight with which he was always received
he found himself even more welcome than he would have been at an inn;
and this is saying very much for gratitude and affection together.
The smiles which surrounded him were of his own creation, and he participated
in the happiness he had bestowed.
The casements began to rattle in the wind, and the rain to beat upon
the windows. The wind swelled to a hurricane, and the rain dashed
like a flood against the glass. The boy retired to his little bed,
the wife trimmed the lamp, the husband heaped logs upon the fire:
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