| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: Ransome, stepping out of the pantry, had been
listening for some time, as it was very excusable
in him to do.
"A dirty trick," said Mr. Burns. "I always
said he would."
The magnitude of my indignation was un-
bounded. And the kind, sympathetic doctor, too.
The only sympathetic man I ever knew . . .
instead of writing that warning letter, the very re-
finement of sympathy, why didn't the man make a
proper inspection? But, as a matter of fact, it was
The Shadow Line |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: possessed with any high degree of spleen or melancholy.
I am apt to think that, in the day of Judgment, there will be small
allowance given to the wise for their want of morals, nor to the
ignorant for their want of faith, because both are without excuse.
This renders the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But,
some scruples in the wise, and some vices in the ignorant, will
perhaps be forgiven upon the strength of temptation to each.
The value of several circumstances in story lessens very much by
distance of time, though some minute circumstances are very
valuable; and it requires great judgment in a writer to
distinguish.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: that the existing productions of the United States are more closely related
to those which lived in Europe during certain later tertiary stages, than
to those which now live here; and if this be so, it is evident that
fossiliferous beds deposited at the present day on the shores of North
America would hereafter be liable to be classed with somewhat older
European beds. Nevertheless, looking to a remotely future epoch, there
can, I think, be little doubt that all the more modern marine formations,
namely, the upper pliocene, the pleistocene and strictly modern beds, of
Europe, North and South America, and Australia, from containing fossil
remains in some degree allied, and from not including those forms which are
only found in the older underlying deposits, would be correctly ranked as
On the Origin of Species |
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 Riverman by Stewart Edward White: the gate had been destroyed. Orde early discovered that he was
likely to have trouble in preventing the logs rushing through the
chute from grounding into a bad jam on the rapids below.
For a time the jam crew succeeded in keeping the "wings" clear. In
the centre of the stream, however, a small jam formed, like a pier.
Along the banks logs grounded, and were rolled over by their own
momentum into places so shallow as to discourage any hope of
refloating them unless by main strength. As the sluicing of the
nine or ten million feet that constituted this particular drive went
forward, the situation rapidly became worse.
Tom, we've got to get flood-water unless we want to run into an
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