| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: "So I am going out of the world--am I?"
"Yes, sir--you haven't many days left in it,"
said Mr. Burns calming down. "One can see it by
your face."
"My face, eh? . . . Well, put up the helm
and be damned to you."
Burns flew on deck, got the ship before the wind,
then came down again composed, but resolute.
"I've shaped a course for Pulo Condor, sir," he
said. "When we make it, if you are still with us,
you'll tell me into what port you wish me to take
 The Shadow Line |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: Then he went back to his work, for nothing that had to do with
antiquity interested Bickley very much. The present and its
problems were enough for him, he would say, who neither had lived
in the past nor expected to have any share in the future.
As I remained curious I made an opportunity to scramble to the
bottom of one of these craters, taking with me some of the
natives with their wooden tools. Here I found a good deal of soil
either washed down from the surface or resulting from the
decomposition of the rock, though oddly enough in it nothing
grew. I directed them to dig. After a while to my astonishment
there appeared a corner of a great worked stone quite unlike that
 When the World Shook |