| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: voracious, the Eskimo has drifted to the inhospitable polar
regions, the Pigmy to the fever-rotten jungles of Africa. And in
this day the drift of the races continues, whether it be of
Chinese into the Philippines and the Malay Peninsula, of Europeans
to the United States or of Americans to the wheat-lands of
Manitoba and the Northwest.
Perhaps most amazing has been the South Sea Drift. Blind,
fortuitous, precarious as no other drift has been, nevertheless
the islands in that waste of ocean have received drift after drift
of the races. Down from the mainland of Asia poured an Aryan
drift that built civilisations in Ceylon, Java, and Sumatra. Only
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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 Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: through it with no other noise but a mysterious
rustle alongside. Otherwise, she had no motion at
all, neither lift nor roll. It was a disheartening
steadiness which had lasted for eighteen days
now; for never, never had we had wind enough in
that time to raise the slightest run of the sea. The
breeze freshened suddenly. I thought it was high
time to get Mr. Burns off the deck. He worried
me. I looked upon him as a lunatic who would be
very likely to start roaming over the ship and break
a limb or fall overboard.
The Shadow Line |
