| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: conclusive demonstration of the intellectual inferiority of the
German to the Western European that is should ever have happened.
There was the clearest /a priori/ case against the gas-bag.
I remember the discussions ten or twelve years ago in which it
was established to the satisfaction of every reasonable man that
ultimately the "heavier than air" machine (as we called it then)
must fly better than the gas-bag, and still more conclusively
that no gas-bag was conceivable that could hope to fight and
defeat aeroplanes. Nevertheless the German, with that dull faith
of his in mere "Will," persisted along his line. He knew
instinctively that he could not produce aviators to meet the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: Ambrosia is only another name for well-turned flapjacks. And all
the immortals, sitting around the table of golden cedar-slabs, make
merry when the clumsy Hephaistos, playing the part of Hebe,
stumbles over a root and upsets the plate of cakes into the fire.
The first little rapid of the Grande Decharge was only the
beginning. Half a mile below we could see the river disappear
between two points of rock. There was a roar of conflict, and a
golden mist hanging in the air, like the smoke of battle. All
along the place where the river sank from sight, dazzling heads of
foam were flashing up and falling back, as if a horde of water-
sprites were vainly trying to fight their way up to the lake. It
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