| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in
weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favourite
conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is
offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of
fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious and in time despotic.
Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten
upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.
"This, sir, is one of the dangers of solitude, which the hermit has
confessed not always to promote goodness, and the astronomer's
misery has proved to be not always propitious to wisdom."
"I will no more," said the favourite, "imagine myself the Queen of
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from United States Declaration of Independence: off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now
the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment
of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts
be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation
 United States Declaration of Independence |