| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: time conversed by means of such pithy but unprogressive axioms.
At last he took up his tale again.
"There was me," said the sunburnt man, "and a seaman named Jacobs,
and Always, the mate of the Ocean Pioneer. And him it was that set
the whole thing going. I remember him now, when we was in the
jolly-boat, suggesting it all to our minds just by one sentence.
He was a wonderful hand at suggesting things. 'There was forty
thousand pounds,' he said, 'on that ship, and it's for me to say
just where she went down.' It didn't need much brains to tumble
to that. And he was the leader from the first to the last. He got
hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they were brothers, and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: "One hundred francs," he said.
"No, thank you!" she said with a grimace of refusal worthy of a macaw.
"Then say how much you want, my little Madame Nourrisson," cried
Bixiou catching her round the waist.
"In the first place, my dear gentlemen, I have never, since I've been
in the business, found man or woman to haggle over happiness.
Besides," she said, letting a cold smile flicker on her lips, and
enforcing it by an icy glance full of catlike distrust, "if it doesn't
concern your happiness, it concerns your fortune; and at the height
where I find you lodging no man haggles over a 'dot'-- Come," she
said, "out with it! What is it you want to know, my lambs?"
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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 Parmenides by Plato: of the fourth century before Christ, and is the stumblingblock of Kant's
Kritik, and of the Hamiltonian adaptation of Kant, as well as of the
Platonic ideas. It has been said that 'you cannot criticize Revelation.'
'Then how do you know what is Revelation, or that there is one at all,' is
the immediate rejoinder--'You know nothing of things in themselves.' 'Then
how do you know that there are things in themselves?' In some respects,
the difficulty pressed harder upon the Greek than upon ourselves. For
conceiving of God more under the attribute of knowledge than we do, he was
more under the necessity of separating the divine from the human, as two
spheres which had no communication with one another.
It is remarkable that Plato, speaking by the mouth of Parmenides, does not
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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 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: "Not any," answered the Captain. "Accept this cigar,
M. Aronnax; and, though it does not come from Havannah,
you will be pleased with it, if you are a connoisseur."
I took the cigar which was offered me; its shape recalled
the London ones, but it seemed to be made of leaves of gold.
I lighted it at a little brazier, which was supported upon an
elegant bronze stem, and drew the first whiffs with the delight
of a lover of smoking who has not smoked for two days.
"It is excellent, but it is not tobacco."
"No!" answered the Captain, "this tobacco comes neither from Havannah
nor from the East. It is a kind of sea-weed, rich in nicotine,
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
