| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: survivors would become as well adapted to the conditions of
underground life, and as happy in their way, as the Upper-world
people were to theirs. As it seemed to me, the refined beauty
and the etiolated pallor followed naturally enough.
`The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed of took a
different shape in my mind. It had been no such triumph of moral
education and general co-operation as I had imagined. Instead, I
saw a real aristocracy, armed with a perfected science and
working to a logical conclusion the industrial system of to-day.
Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over Nature, but a
triumph over Nature and the fellow-man. This, I must warn you,
 The Time Machine |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: STRANGER: And if we call the management of violent rulers tyranny, and the
voluntary management of herds of voluntary bipeds politics, may we not
further assert that he who has this latter art of management is the true
king and statesman?
YOUNG SOCRATES: I think, Stranger, that we have now completed the account
of the Statesman.
STRANGER: Would that we had, Socrates, but I have to satisfy myself as
well as you; and in my judgment the figure of the king is not yet
perfected; like statuaries who, in their too great haste, having overdone
the several parts of their work, lose time in cutting them down, so too we,
partly out of haste, partly out of a magnanimous desire to expose our
 Statesman |