| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: word for a cut-throat, it would be a most egregious calumny. If stocks
rise and fall, if property improves and depreciates, the fluctuations
of the market are caused by a common movement, a something in the air,
a tide in the affairs of men subject like other tides to lunar
influences. The great Arago is much to blame for giving us no
scientific theory to account for this important phenomenon. The only
outcome of all this is an axiom which I have never seen anywhere in
print----"
"And that is?"
"The debtor is more than a match for the creditor."
"Oh!" said Blondet. "For my own part, all that we have been saying
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: fought with a naked dirk, fought with a coolie who snapped at me
like an ape--and you talk to me of dancing and functions and
german favors! It wouldn't do some of you people a bit of harm if
you were shanghaied yourselves. That sort of life, if it don't do
anything else, knocks a big bit of seriousness into you. You
fellows make me sick," he went on vehemently. "As though there
wasn't anything else to do but lead cotillons and get up new
figures!"
"Well, what do you propose to do?" asked Nat Ridgeway. "Where are
you going now--back to Magdalena Bay?"
"No."
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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 Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: which you would lose by a single accidental delay!"
"The unforeseen does not exist," quietly replied Phileas Fogg.
"But, Mr. Fogg, eighty days are only the estimate of the least possible
time in which the journey can be made."
"A well-used minimum suffices for everything."
"But, in order not to exceed it, you must jump mathematically
from the trains upon the steamers, and from the steamers upon
the trains again."
"I will jump--mathematically."
"You are joking."
"A true Englishman doesn't joke when he is talking about so
Around the World in 80 Days |
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 In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: vigorous life, the other a girl of eighteen. The elder of these
devoted women is awaiting us at the barracks to be our guide to
Slumdom. She is tall, slender, and clad in a coarse brown gown, mended
with patches. A big gingham apron, artistically rent in several
places, is tied about her waist. She wears on old plaid woollen shawl
and an ancient brown straw hat. Her dress indicates extreme poverty,
her face denotes perfect peace. "This is Em," says Mrs. Ballington
Booth, and after this introduction we sally forth.
More and more wretched grows the district as we penetrate further Em
pauses before a dirty, broken, smoke-dimmed window, through which in a
dingy room are seen a party of roughs, dark-looking men, drinking and
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
