| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: what to reply; but he felt that the safety of the colony could not but be
seriously threatened by the arrival of the brig.
However, he and his companions were determined to fight to the last gasp.
It would have been very important to know if the pirates were numerous and
better armed than the colonists. But how was this information to he
obtained?
Night fell. The new moon had disappeared. Profound darkness enveloped the
island and the sea. No light could pierce through the heavy piles of clouds
on the horizon. The wind had died away completely with the twilight. Not a
leaf rustled on the trees, not a ripple murmured on the shore. Nothing
could be seen of the ship, all her lights being extinguished, and if she
The Mysterious Island |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: upon a lake, beat upon the shore. But the weeds were new to me
-- some green, some brown and long, and some with little bladders
that crackled between my fingers. Even so far up the firth, the
smell of the sea-water was exceedingly salt and stirring; the
Covenant, besides, was beginning to shake out her sails, which
hung upon the yards in clusters; and the spirit of all that I
beheld put me in thoughts of far voyages and foreign places.
I looked, too, at the seamen with the skiff -- big brown fellows,
some in shirts, some with jackets, some with coloured
handkerchiefs about their throats, one with a brace of pistols
stuck into his pockets, two or three with knotty bludgeons, and
Kidnapped |
