| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: the by what was his name?"
"The master of the Ferndale? Anthony. Captain Anthony."
"Just so. Quite right," approved Marlow thoughtfully. Our new
acquaintance looked over his shoulder.
"What do you mean? Why is it more right than if it had been Brown?"
"He has known him probably," I explained. "Marlow here appears to
know something of every soul that ever went afloat in a sailor's
body."
Mr. Powell seemed wonderfully amenable to verbal suggestions for
looking again out of the window, he muttered:
"He was a good soul."
Chance |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: foreign carriage, built himself a house after the foreign style
of architecture, furnished it with foreign furniture, employed an
Englishman to teach his boys, and as we have seen opened a school
for the women and girls of his family. He therefore lost his
position, but it is to the credit of Prince Chun, the new Regent,
and his progressive policy, that Prince Su has been made chief of
the naval department, of which Prince Ching is only an adviser.
The most important person among either princes or officials that
has been connected with the new regime is Yuan Shih-kai. He was
born in the province of Honan, that province south of the Yellow
River which is almost annually flooded by that great muddy stream
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