| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: Out of its depths, whence it before was singing,
As one delighted to do good, continued:
"Within that region of the land depraved
Of Italy, that lies between Rialto
And fountain-heads of Brenta and of Piava,
Rises a hill, and mounts not very high,
Wherefrom descended formerly a torch
That made upon that region great assault.
Out of one root were born both I and it;
Cunizza was I called, and here I shine
Because the splendour of this star o'ercame me.
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: hull heading directly after us. We went to work immediately, and
put all the canvas upon the brig which we could get upon her,
rigging out oars for studding-sail yards; and contined wetting
down the sails by buckets of water whipped up to the mast-head . .
. She was armed, and full of men, and showed no colours."
The foregoing sounds like a paragraph from "Midshipman Easy" or
the "Water Witch," rather than a paragraph from the soberest,
faithfullest, and most literal chronicle of the sea ever written.
And yet the chase by a pirate occurred, on board the brig Pilgrim,
on September 22nd, 1834--something like only two generations ago.
Dana was the thorough-going type of man, not overbalanced and
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