| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: superstitions.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night
of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady
Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of
such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch--while the hours
waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness
which had dominion over me. I endeavoured to believe that much,
if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence
of the gloomy furniture of the room--of the dark and tattered
draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising
tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: SOCRATES: How so?
NICIAS: Why, because he does not see that the physician's knowledge only
extends to the nature of health and disease: he can tell the sick man no
more than this. Do you imagine, Laches, that the physician knows whether
health or disease is the more terrible to a man? Had not many a man better
never get up from a sick bed? I should like to know whether you think that
life is always better than death. May not death often be the better of the
two?
LACHES: Yes certainly so in my opinion.
NICIAS: And do you think that the same things are terrible to those who
had better die, and to those who had better live?
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