| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: for making difference at such a time as this was.
It was indeed a lamentable thing to hear the miserable lamentations
of poor dying creatures calling out for ministers to comfort them and
pray with them, to counsel them and to direct them, calling out to God
for pardon and mercy, and confessing aloud their past sins. It would
make the stoutest heart bleed to hear how many warnings were then
given by dying penitents to others not to put off and delay their
repentance to the day of distress; that such a time of calamity as this
was no time for repentance, was no time to call upon God. I wish I
could repeat the very sound of those groans and of those exclamations
that I heard from some poor dying creatures when in the height of
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: or if they do put it on, they often forget to take it off
at the bottom of the hill, and more than once I have had to pull
halfway up the next hill, with one of the wheels held by the brake,
before my driver chose to think about it; and that is a terrible strain
on a horse.
Then these cockneys, instead of starting at an easy pace,
as a gentleman would do, generally set off at full speed
from the very stable-yard; and when they want to stop, they first whip us,
and then pull up so suddenly that we are nearly thrown on our haunches,
and our mouths jagged with the bit -- they call that pulling up with a dash;
and when they turn a corner they do it as sharply as if there were
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