| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: my shirts to repair. This was something different from
the captains' wives I had known on board crack clippers.
When I brought her the shirts, she said: 'And the
socks? They want mending, I am sure, and John's--
Captain Beard's--things are all in order now. I would
be glad of something to do.' Bless the old woman. She
overhauled my outfit for me, and meantime I read for the
first time 'Sartor Resartus' and Burnaby's 'Ride to
Khiva.' I didn't understand much of the first then;
but I remember I preferred the soldier to the philosopher
at the time; a preference which life has only confirmed.
Youth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: greedos (their monetary unit) and the hand of his totally gorgeous
daughter to the person who could make his mail arrive the fastest.
His loyal subjects immediately rushed to solve the problem, setting
themselves to this task with an enthusiasm that an objective observer
might well have described as manic. People ran back and forth, up and
down, muttering, "Move the mail, shove the mail, fling it, sling it.
Run. Hurry. Shoot the mail, toss it, heave it," and such like.
Included in the many and varied offered solutions were proposals to
build a rocket sled, crisscross the countryside with pneumatic tubes,
use fast horses stimulated by strong coffee, borrow a dragster from
the sports arena, set up a reliable airline, make a jet-powered
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