| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: ready to put to sea. But here a new difficulty was encountered.
"What do I know about ships?" Condy confessed to Blix. "If Billy
Isham is going to command a filibustering schooner, I've got to
know something about a schooner--appear to, anyhow. I've got to
know nautical lingo, the real thing, you know. I don't believe a
REAL sailor ever in his life said 'belay there,' or 'avast.' We'll
have to go out and see Captain Jack; get some more technical
detail."
This move was productive of the most delightful results. Captain
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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 Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Where they saw too late the road they should have taken long ago:
There were thwarted clerks and fiddlers in the Valley of the Shadow,
The commemorative wreckage of what others did not know.
And there were daughters older than the mothers who had borne them,
Being older in their wisdom, which is older than the earth;
And they were going forward only farther into darkness,
Unrelieved as were the blasting obligations of their birth;
And among them, giving always what was not for their possession,
There were maidens, very quiet, with no quiet in their eyes:
There were daughters of the silence in the Valley of the Shadow,
Each an isolated item in the family sacrifice.
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