| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: I did not know her. Would she do it? How was she to be handled?
I swung the mainyard and waited helplessly. She was perhaps stopped,
and her very fate hung in the balance, with the black mass
of Koh-ring like the gate of the everlasting night towering over
her taffrail. What would she do now? Had she way on her yet?
I stepped to the side swiftly, and on the shadowy water I could see
nothing except a faint phosphorescent flash revealing the glassy
smoothness of the sleeping surface. It was impossible to tell--
and I had not learned yet the feel of my ship. Was she moving?
What I needed was something easily seen, a piece of paper,
which I could throw overboard and watch. I had nothing on me.
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Master of the World by Jules Verne: luck with the partridges and hares. The good beasts will not
recognize me. But not only have we plenty of provisions, but we have
a bigger chase on hand today. The chase of a mystery."
"And let us hope," added I, "we do not come back disappointed
hunters."
In the afternoon the whole chain of the Blueridge stretched before us
at a distance of only six miles. The mountain crests were sharply
outlined against the clear sky. Well wooded at the base, they grew
more bare and showed only stunted evergreens toward the summit. There
the scraggly trees, grotesquely twisted, gave to the rocky heights a
bleak and bizarre appearance. Here and there the ridge rose in sharp
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