| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: shall see.' So he took me into the great cabin, and there sat
a good sort of a gentlemanly man for a seaman, writing, and
with a great many papers before him.
'Here,' says the boatswain to him that was a-writing, 'is the
gentlewoman that the captain spoke to you of'; and turning to
me, he said, 'I have been so far from forgetting your business,
that I have been up at the captain's house, and have represented
faithfully to the captain what you said, relating to you being
furnished with better conveniences for yourself and your
husband; and the captain has sent this gentleman, who is made
of the ship, down with me, on purpose to show you everything,
Moll Flanders |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: Strepsiades could have got an Asmodean glimpse of Fifth Avenue,
or even of some unpretending street in Cambridge, he might have
gone back to his aristocratic wife a sadder but a more contented
man.
Wealth--or at least what would until lately have been called
wealth--has become essential to comfort; while the opportunities
for acquiring it have in recent times been immensely multiplied.
To get money is, therefore, the chief end of life in our time and
country. "Success in life" has become synonymous with "becoming
wealthy." A man who is successful in what he undertakes is a man
who makes his employment pay him in money. Our normal type of
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
