| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: some like cripples, some so strangely distorted as to resemble nothing
but the denizens of our wildest dreams; and, beyond, the reedy
lines of a canebrake in one direction, a dense tangle of palm-trees
on the other, separating us from the ravine with the huts,
and to the north the hazy horizon of the Pacific Ocean.
"Sixty-two, sixty-three," counted Moreau. "There are four more."
"I do not see the Leopard-man," said I.
Presently Moreau sounded the great horn again, and at the sound
of it all the Beast People writhed and grovelled in the dust.
Then, slinking out of the canebrake, stooping near the ground
and trying to join the dust-throwing circle behind Moreau's back,
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: seems to be, however, that when he casts his leaves forth upon
the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside
his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand
him better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. Some
authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in
such confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be
addressed only and exclusively to the one heart and
8 THE SCARLET LETTER
The Scarlet Letter |
