| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: their colossal structure to be perfectly built up again and
anatomically ascertained.
I saw at the Hamburg museum the skeleton of one of these creatures
thirty feet in length. Am I then fated - I, a denizen of earth - to
be placed face to face with these representatives of long extinct
families? No; surely it cannot be! Yet the deep marks of conical
teeth upon the iron pick are certainly those of the crocodile.
My eyes are fearfully bent upon the sea. I dread to see one of these
monsters darting forth from its submarine caverns. I suppose
Professor Liedenbrock was of my opinion too, and even shared my
fears, for after having examined the pick, his eyes traversed the
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: the family. It is time to rid France of her monks, to restore their
lands to the Crown, who will, sooner or later, sell them to the
burghers. Let us learn to die for our children, and make our families
some day free and prosperous."
The face of the young enthusiast, that of Chaudieu, that of the
sailor, that of the stranger seated in the bow, lighted by the last
gleams of the twilight, formed a picture which ought the more to be
described because the description contains in itself the whole history
of the times--if it is, indeed, true that to certain men it is given
to sum up in their own persons the spirit of their age.
The religious reform undertaken by Luther in Germany, John Knox in
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