| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: many large bushes, and lies down to watch it. This habit is
often the cause of its being discovered; for the condors
wheeling in the air every now and then descend to partake
of the feast, and being angrily driven away, rise all together
on the wing. The Chileno Guaso then knows there is a lion
watching his prey -- the word is given -- and men and dogs
hurry to the chase. Sir F. Head says that a Gaucho in the
pampas, upon merely seeing some condors wheeling in the
air, cried "A lion!" I could never myself meet with any one
who pretended to such powers of discrimination. It is asserted
that, if a puma has once been betrayed by thus watching
The Voyage of the Beagle |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: had taken a strong inclination to remain there. This had been as
strongly opposed by her liege lord, who had compelled her to
embark. The good dame had remained sulky ever since, whereupon
Pierre, seeing no other mode of exorcising the evil spirit out of
her, and being, perhaps, a little inspired by whiskey, had
resorted to the Indian remedy of the cudgel, and before his
neighbors could interfere, had belabored her so soundly, that
there is no record of her having shown any refractory symptoms
throughout the remainder of the expedition.
For a week they continued their voyage, exposed to almost
incessant rains. The bodies of drowned buffaloes floated past
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