| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: feeble destiny that is wrecked by passion, when it should be
ennobled. Aunt Jane and Kate watched Hope closely during her
years of probation, for although she fancied herself to be
keeping her own counsel, yet her career lay in broad light for
them. She was like yonder sailboat, which floats conspicuous by
night amid the path of moonbeams, and which yet seems to its
own voyagers to be remote and unseen upon a waste of waves.
Why should I linger over the details of her life, after the
width of ocean lay between her and Malbone, and a manhood of
self-denying usefulness had begun to show that even he could
learn something by life's retributions? We know what she was,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: TWISTED OAKUM SLOWLY UNWINDING FROM A LARGE ROLL OF IT PLACED IN THE
BOSOM OF HIS FROCK.--AHAB COMES SLOWLY FROM THE CABIN-GANGWAY, AND
HEARS PIP FOLLOWING HIM.
Back, lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this
hand complies with my humor more genially than that boy.--Middle
aisle of a church! What's here?"
"Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck's orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware the
hatchway!"
"Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault."
"Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does."
"Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from thy
 Moby Dick |