| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: of your darling Montmartre then?"
The captain had touched a tender chord. For a moment Ben Zoof stood with
clenched teeth and contracted muscles; then, in a voice of real concern,
he inquired whether anything could be done to avert the calamity.
"Nothing whatever; so you may go about your own business,"
was the captain's brusque rejoinder.
All discomfited and bewildered, Ben Zoof retired without a word.
During the ensuing days the distance between the two planets continued
to decrease, and it became more and more obvious that the earth,
on her new orbit, was about to cross the orbit of Venus. Throughout this
time the earth had been making a perceptible approach towards Mercury,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: is low. "Tut!" says he, "we'll turn no hair gray for that." So
up he calls the bold Captain Richards, the commander of his
consort the Revenge sloop, and bids him take Mr. Marks (one of
his prisoners), and go up to Charleston and get the medicine.
There was no task that suited our Captain Richards better than
that. Up to the town he rowed, as bold as brass. "Look ye," says
he to the governor, rolling his quid of tobacco from one cheek to
another--"look ye, we're after this and that, and if we don't get
it, why, I'll tell you plain, we'll burn them bloody crafts of
yours that we've took over yonder, and cut the weasand of every
clodpoll aboard of 'em."
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
