| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: had cast away its name, and England was saved.
"But he will never get there, sir," said old Yeo, who had come upon
deck to murmur his Nunc Domine, and gaze upon that sight beyond all
human faith or hope: "Never, never will he weather the Flanders
shore, against such a breeze as is coming up. Look to the eye of
the wind, sir, and see how the Lord is fighting for His people!"
Yes, down it came, fresher and stiffer every minute out of the gray
north-west, as it does so often after a thunder-storm; and the sea
began to rise high and white under the " Claro Aquilone," till the
Spaniards were fain to take in all spare canvas, and lie-to as best
they could; while the English fleet, lying-to also, awaited an
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: Sirius. To cite one example out of a hundred, every
philologist knows that s may become r, and that the broad
a-sound may dwindle into the closer o-sound; but when you
adduce some plausible etymology based on the assumption that r
has changed into s, or o into a, apart from the demonstrable
influence of some adjacent letter, the philologist will shake
his head.
Now in the study of stories there are no such simple rules all
cut and dried for us to go by. There is no uniform
psychological principle which determines that the three-headed
snake in one story shall become a three-headed man in the
Myths and Myth-Makers |
