| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: could not help feeling how valuable such a prize would have been to the
colony, for the oil, fat, and bones would have been put to many uses.
Now it happened that this whale appeared to have no wish to leave the
waters of the island. Therefore, whether from the windows of Granite House,
or from Prospect Heights, Herbert and Gideon Spilett, when they were not
hunting, or Neb, unless presiding over his fires, never left the telescope,
but watched all the animal's movements. The cetacean, having entered far
into Union Bay, made rapid furrows across it from Mandible Cape to Claw
Cape, propelled by its enormously powerful flukes, on which it supported
itself, and making its way through the water at the rate little short of
twelve knots an hour. Sometimes also it approached so near to the island
The Mysterious Island |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: His race had bequeathed him its fine-strung, melancholy
temperament, its saving balance of thrift and industry.
From his point of perspective he saw himself an outcast
from society, forever to be a shady skulker along the
ragged edge of respectability; a denizen des trois-quartz
de monde, that pathetic spheroid lying between the haut
and the demi, whose inhabitants envy each of their neigh-
bours, and are scorned by both. He was self-condemned
to this opinion, as he was self-exiled, through it, to this
quaint Southern city a thousand miles from his former
home. Here he had dwelt for longer than a year, know-
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: SOCRATES: I think that I understand him; and he appears to me to mean that
courage is a sort of wisdom.
LACHES: What can he possibly mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: That is a question which you must ask of himself.
LACHES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Tell him then, Nicias, what you mean by this wisdom; for you
surely do not mean the wisdom which plays the flute?
NICIAS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor the wisdom which plays the lyre?
NICIAS: No.
SOCRATES: But what is this knowledge then, and of what?
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: narrative down to the truce of 1609, he ought, instead of
describing the Thirty Years' War, to keep on with Dutch history,
and pourtray the wars against Cromwell and Charles II., and the
struggle of the second William of Orange against Louis XIV. By so
doing he would only violate the unity of his narrative. The wars
of the Dutch against England and France belong to an entirely
different epoch in European history,--a modern epoch, in which
political and commercial interests were of prime importance, and
theological interests distinctly subsidiary. The natural terminus
of Mr. Motley's work is the Peace of Westphalia. After bringing
down his history to the time when the independence of the
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
