| 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: Magellan, and ascended the Pacific as far as Patagonia, where, according to
a previous interpretation of the document, they supposed that Captain Grant
was a prisoner among the Indians.
"The 'Duncan' disembarked her passengers on the western coast of
Patagonia, and sailed to pick them up again on the eastern coast at Cape
Corrientes. Lord Glenarvan traversed Patagonia, following the thirty-
seventh parallel, and having found no trace of the captain, he re-embarked
on the 13th of November, so as to pursue his search through the Ocean.
"After having unsuccessfully visited the islands of Tristan d'Acunha and
Amsterdam, situated in her course, the 'Duncan,' as I have said, arrived at
Cape Bernouilli, on the Australian coast, on the 20th of December, 1854.
The Mysterious Island |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: benumbed and speechless, and the babies feel the frost in the air
and look vacant, and the callers go through the usual form of
wondering who they most take after, generally settling the question
by saying that the May baby, who is the beauty, is like her father,
and that the two more or less plain ones are the <42> image of me,
and this decision, though I know it of old and am sure it is coming,
never fails to depress me as much as though I heard it for the first time.
The babies are very little and inoffensive and good, and it
is hard that they should be used as a means of filling up gaps
in conversation, and their features pulled to pieces one by one,
and all their weak points noted and criticised, while they stand
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: grew, low on the forehead, which was slightly depressed; he discovered
in the perfect regularity of her features a certain set rigidity which
before long made him hate the assumed sweetness that had bewitched
him. Intuition told him that one day of disaster those thin lips might
say, "My dear, it is for your good!"
Madame de Granville's complexion was acquiring a dull pallor and an
austere expression that were a kill-joy to all who came near her. Was
this change wrought by the ascetic habits of a pharisaism which is not
piety any more than avarice is economy? It would be hard to say.
Beauty without expression is perhaps an imposture. This imperturbable
set smile that the young wife always wore when she looked at Granville
|
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 Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs: take her away and back to the land of Sari, where she
told me she would be able to learn the whereabouts of
her mate. Just now I was going to the other end of the
island to see if a boat lay there, and if the way was
clear for our escape. Most of the boats are always away
now, for a great many of Hooja's men and nearly all the
slaves are upon the Island of Trees, where Hooja is hav-
ing many boats built to carry his warriors across the
water to the mouth of a great river which he discovered
while he was returning from Phutra--a vast river that
empties into the sea there."
Pellucidar |
