| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: and from there the Captain could communicate simultaneously to his
Nautilus the direction and the speed. He pressed a metal knob,
and at once the speed of the screw diminished.
I looked in silence at the high straight wall we were running
by at this moment, the immovable base of a massive sandy coast.
We followed it thus for an hour only some few yards off.
Captain Nemo did not take his eye from the knob, suspended by
its two concentric circles in the cabin. At a simple gesture,
the pilot modified the course of the Nautilus every instant.
I had placed myself at the port-scuttle, and saw some magnificent
substructures of coral, zoophytes, seaweed, and fucus, agitating their
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: O'Toole--comes bulgin' in. When he was sober he talked minin'
high, wide, and handsome. When he was drunk he pounded both
fists on the bar and yelled for action, tryin' to get Dutchy on
the peck.
"God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" he yells about
six times. "Say, do you hear?"
"Sure," says Dutchy, calm as a milk cow, "sure, I hears ye!"
I was plumb sorry for O'Toole. I'd like to have given him a run;
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: yet was there even silence, but a strange and smothered utterance,
such as rage and battle vent.[9] At last a portion of the Thebans
forced their way through towards Helicon, but many were slain in that
departure.
[9] Or, "as the rage and fury of battle may give vent to." See
"Cyrop." VII. i. 38-40. A graphic touch omitted in "Hell." IV.
iii. 19.
Victory remained with Agesilaus. Wounded himself, they bore him back
to his own lines, when some of his troopers came galloping up to tell
him that eighty of the enemy had taken refuge with their arms[10]
under cover of the Temple,[11] and they asked what they ought to do.
|
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: shrewd courtesy. "We have come to consult you, a second time, on an
important matter, about which I am ignorant as a perfumer can be."
"Let me hear what it is."
"I know that hair has lately occupied all your vigils, and that you
have given yourself up to analyzing it; while you have thought of
glory, I have thought of commerce."
"Dear Monsieur Birotteau, what is it you want of me,--the analysis of
hair?" He took up a little paper. "I am about to read before the
Academy of Sciences a monograph on that subject. Hair is composed of a
rather large quantity of mucus, a small quantity of white oil, a great
deal of greenish oil, iron, a few atoms of oxide of manganese, some
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
