| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: lessening, increased the charge of the sphere. This he ascribed to
the coalescence of the lines of electric force at some distance
behind the screen.
Faraday's theoretic views on this subject have not received general
acceptance, but they drove him to experiment, and experiment with
him was always prolific of results. By suitable arrangements he
placed a metallic sphere in the middle of a large hollow sphere,
leaving a space of something more than half an inch between them.
The interior sphere was insulated, the external one uninsulated.
To the former he communicated a definite charge of electricity.
It acted by induction upon the concave surface of the latter, and he
|
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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: inclined, notwithstanding his big whiskers and tattooings. On the
contrary, he rather liked the bird, and, out of devilry, tried to
teach him oaths. Felicite, whom his manner alarmed, put Loulou in the
kitchen, took off his chain and let him walk all over the house.
When he went downstairs, he rested his beak on the steps, lifted his
right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that such
feats would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to eat.
There was a small growth under his tongue like those chickens are
sometimes afflicted with. Felicite pulled it off with her nails and
cured him. One day, Paul was imprudent enough to blow the smoke of his
cigar in his face; another time, Madame Lormeau was teasing him with
A Simple Soul |
