| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: and not at all to the public market. But as meantime I had been
emptying my Venetian goblet with a certain regularity (the amount
of heat given out by that iron stove was amazing; it parched one's
throat, and the straw-coloured wine didn't seem much stronger than
so much pleasantly flavoured water) the voices and the impressions
they conveyed acquired something fantastic to my mind. Suddenly I
perceived that Mills was sitting in his shirt-sleeves. I had not
noticed him taking off his coat. Blunt had unbuttoned his shabby
jacket, exposing a lot of starched shirt-front with the white tie
under his dark shaved chin. He had a strange air of insolence - or
so it seemed to me. I addressed him much louder than I intended
 The Arrow of Gold |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: free to spend that salary, great or little, on his own
private pleasures, the rest of his fortune he but holds and
disposes under trust for mankind; it is not his, because he
has not earned it; it cannot be his, because his services
have already been paid; but year by year it is his to
distribute, whether to help individuals whose birthright and
outfit have been swallowed up in his, or to further public
works and institutions.
At this rate, short of inspiration, it seems hardly possible
to be both rich and honest; and the millionaire is under a
far more continuous temptation to thieve than the labourer
|