The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: Damon, "to throw light upon the situation." He touched a match to
it, and the flames flashed up the tall trunk until it was
transformed into a pillar of fire. But the sudden illumination
burned out, and our counsels were wrapt again in darkness and
uncertainty, when there came a great uproar of steam-whistles from
the lake. They must be signalling for us. What could it mean?
We fired our guns, leaped into a canoe, leaving two of the guides
to break camp, and paddled out swiftly into the night. It seemed
an endless distance before we found the feeble light where the
crippled launch was tossing at anchor. The captain shouted
something about a larger steamboat and a raft of logs, out in the
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Rescue by Joseph Conrad: pressed it with both hands, then let them fall. "What about that
man?" he asked, brusquely. "Where did he come from? . . . I
suppose he is dead now," he added in an envious tone.
"No, sir. He must have as many lives as a cat," answered Carter.
"I will tell you how it was. As I said before I wasn't going to
give you up, dead or alive, so yesterday when the sun went down a
little in the afternoon I had two of our boats manned and pulled
in shore, taking soundings to find a passage if there was one. I
meant to go back and look for you with the brig or without the
brig--but that doesn't matter now. There were three or four
floating logs in sight. One of the Calashes in my boat made out
 The Rescue |