| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: schooner was standing well out from shore--even beyond the track
of the coasters and passenger steamers--to catch the Trades from
the northwest. The sun was setting royally, and the floor of the
ocean shimmered like mosaic. The sea had gone down and the fury
of the bar was a thing forgotten. It was perceptibly warmer.
On board, the two watches mingled forward, smoking opium and
playing a game that looked like checkers. Three of them were
washing down the decks with kaiar brooms. For the first time
since he had come on board Wilbur heard the sound of their voices.
The evening was magnificent. Never to Wilbur's eyes had the
Pacific appeared so vast, so radiant, so divinely beautiful. A
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: feelings of the same kind oppressed the mind of the Master
himself. He gradually became silent, adn dropped a little
behind the lady, at whose bridle-rein he had hitherto waited with
such devotion. He well recollected the period when, at the same
hour in the evening, he had accompanied his father, as that
nobleman left, never again to return to it, the mansion from
which he derived his name and title. The extensive front of the
old castle, on which he remembered having often looked back, was
then "as black as mourning weed." The same front now glanced
with many lights, some throwing far forward into the night a
fixed and stationary blaze, and others hurrying from one window
The Bride of Lammermoor |
