| 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: him but somehow that was the impression. I had hardly time to
receive it when crash! . . . he was already at the other door. I
suppose he thought that his prey was escaping him. His swiftness
was amazing, almost inconceivable, more like the effect of a trick
or of a mechanism. The thump on the door was awful as if he had
not been able to stop himself in time. The shock seemed enough to
stun an elephant. It was really funny. And after the crash there
was a moment of silence as if he were recovering himself. The next
thing was a low grunt, and at once he picked up the thread of his
fixed idea.
"You will have to be my wife. I have no shame. You swore you
The Arrow of Gold |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And the finite or limit had not many divisions, and we readily
acknowledged it to be by nature one?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Yes, indeed; and when I speak of the third class, understand me
to mean any offspring of these, being a birth into true being, effected by
the measure which the limit introduces.
PROTARCHUS: I understand.
SOCRATES: Still there was, as we said, a fourth class to be investigated,
and you must assist in the investigation; for does not everything which
comes into being, of necessity come into being through a cause?
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