| 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: Up to this time, the travelers, while admitting that this action
was constantly decreasing, had not yet become sensible to its
total absence.
But that day, about eleven o'clock in the morning, Nicholl
having accidentally let a glass slip from his hand, the glass,
instead of falling, remained suspended in the air.
"Ah!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, "that is rather an amusing piece
of natural philosophy."
And immediately divers other objects, firearms and bottles,
abandoned to themselves, held themselves up as by enchantment.
Diana too, placed in space by Michel, reproduced, but without
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 The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: youth had taught her to understand the polite pity of the world.
Resolved not to undergo it a second time, she withdrew more and more
into the privacy of her own house, now deserted by society and even by
her nearest friends.
Among these many causes of distress, the negligence and disorder of
Balthazar's dress, so degrading to a man of his station, was not the
least bitter to a woman accustomed to the exquisite nicety of Flemish
life. At first Josephine endeavored, in concert with Balthazar's
valet, Lemulquinier, to repair the daily devastation of his clothing,
but even that she was soon forced to give up. The very day when
Balthazar, unaware of the substitution, put on new clothes in place of
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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 Aeneid by Virgil: And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands;
Then heaves them off the shoals. Where'er he guides
His finny coursers and in triumph rides,
The waves unruffle and the sea subsides.
As, when in tumults rise th' ignoble crowd,
Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud;
And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly,
And all the rustic arms that fury can supply:
If then some grave and pious man appear,
They hush their noise, and lend a list'ning ear;
He soothes with sober words their angry mood,
Aeneid |
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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: some seventy-five miles across the level plain from Lesser
Helium. He had landed at the latter city because the air
patrol is less suspicious and alert than that above the
larger metropolis where lies the palace of the jeddak.
As he moved with the throng in the parklike canyon of
the thoroughfare the life of an awakening Martian city
was in evidence about him. Houses, raised high upon their
slender metal columns for the night were dropping gently
toward the ground. Among the flowers upon the scarlet sward
which lies about the buildings children were already playing,
and comely women laughing and chatting with their neighbours as
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
