| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: with a heavy, curling beard.
He appeared not to comprehend what the interpreter said to him at
first. But Vitellius threw a meaning glance at Antipas, who quickly
made the Babylonian understand the command of the proconsul. Jacim
immediately laid both his hands against the door, giving it a powerful
shove; whereupon it quietly slid out of sight into the wall.
A wave of hot air surged from the depths of the cavern. A winding path
descended and turned abruptly. The group followed it, and soon arrived
at the threshold of a kind of grotto, somewhat larger than the other
subterranean cells.
An arched window at the back of this chamber gave directly upon a
Herodias |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: which legislators are continually putting in their way;
and if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of
their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would
deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievious
persons who put obstructions on the railroads.
But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike
those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not
at one no government, but at once a better government. Let
every man make known what kind of government would command
his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
After all, the practical reason why, when the power is
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
| 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: the state of the lady's heart; and, being the most faithful of domestics,
he never exhausted his eulogies of Phileas Fogg's honesty, generosity,
and devotion. He took pains to calm Aouda's doubts of a successful
termination of the journey, telling her that the most difficult part
of it had passed, that now they were beyond the fantastic countries
of Japan and China, and were fairly on their way to civilised places again.
A railway train from San Francisco to New York, and a transatlantic steamer
from New York to Liverpool, would doubtless bring them to the end of this
impossible journey round the world within the period agreed upon.
On the ninth day after leaving Yokohama, Phileas Fogg had traversed exactly
one half of the terrestrial globe. The General Grant passed, on the 23rd
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 The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: dear, and thou, my beauteous sister; let us ascend my chariot, and
haste to assist our devout Moderns, who are now sacrificing to us a
hecatomb, as I perceive by that grateful smell which from thence
reaches my nostrils."
The goddess and her train, having mounted the chariot, which was
drawn by tame geese, flew over infinite regions, shedding her
influence in due places, till at length she arrived at her beloved
island of Britain; but in hovering over its metropolis, what
blessings did she not let fall upon her seminaries of Gresham and
Covent-garden! And now she reached the fatal plain of St. James's
library, at what time the two armies were upon the point to engage;
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