| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: With her two prisoners still beneath the coercing influence
of her rifle, she ordered them upon deck with the intention
of again imprisoning them in the forecastle; but at length she
permitted herself to be influenced by their promises of loyalty
and the arguments which they put forth that they could be of
service to her, and permitted them to remain above.
For a few minutes the Kincaid drifted rapidly with the current,
and then, with a grinding jar, she stopped in midstream.
The ship had run upon a low-lying bar that splits the channel
about a quarter of a mile from the sea.
For a moment she hung there, and then, swinging round until
The Beasts of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: is a question whether it is not a more subtle and more human
triumph to be the sport of the waves and yet survive, achieving
your end.
In his own time a man is always very modern. Whether the seamen of
three hundred years hence will have the faculty of sympathy it is
impossible to say. An incorrigible mankind hardens its heart in
the progress of its own perfectability. How will they feel on
seeing the illustrations to the sea novels of our day, or of our
yesterday? It is impossible to guess. But the seaman of the last
generation, brought into sympathy with the caravels of ancient time
by his sailing-ship, their lineal descendant, cannot look upon
The Mirror of the Sea |
