| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: with the diminution of its volume; and a moment would have arrived
when the centrifugal force would have overpowered the centripetal,
which causes the molecules all to tend toward the center.
Another phenomenon would now have passed before the observer's
eye, and the molecules situated on the plane of the equator,
escaping like a stone from a sling of which the cord had
suddenly snapped, would have formed around the sun sundry
concentric rings resembling that of Saturn. In their turn,
again, these rings of cosmical matter, excited by a rotary
motion about the central mass, would have been broken up and
decomposed into secondary nebulosities, that is to say,
From the Earth to the Moon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Call back its dead,
Could we live it all over again,
Were it worth the pain!
I remember we used to meet
By an ivied seat,
And you warbled each pretty word
With the air of a bird;
And your voice had a quaver in it,
Just like a linnet,
And shook, as the blackbird's throat
With its last big note;
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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 A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: troopers who are surprised at nothing, who find matter for laughter in
the contortions of a dying comrade, who bury or plunder him quite
light-heartedly, who stand intrepidly in the way of bullets;--in fact,
one of those men who waste no time in deliberation, and would not
hesitate to make friends with the devil himself. After looking very
attentively at the proprietor of the menagerie getting out of his box,
my companion pursed up his lips with an air of mockery and contempt,
with that peculiar and expressive twist which superior people assume
to show they are not taken in. Then, when I was expatiating on the
courage of M. Martin, he smiled, shook his head knowingly, and said,
'Well known.'
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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 Paz by Honore de Balzac: contempt is felt. Thaddeus was suffering from the wounds his own hand
had given him. The trial of his former life, when he lived beside his
mistress, unknown, unappreciated, but generously working for her, was
better than this. Yes, he wanted the reward of his virtue, her
respect, and he had lost it. He grew thin and yellow, and so ill with
constant low fever that during the month of January he was obliged to
keep his bed, though he refused to see a doctor. Comte Adam became
very uneasy about him; but the countess had the cruelty to remark:
"Let him alone; don't you see it is only some Olympian trouble?" This
remark, being repeated to Thaddeus, gave him the courage of despair;
he left his bed, went out, tried a few amusements, and recovered his
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