| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: "You could not suppose," replied the orderly, "that my own unassisted hands
could have accomplished all that harvest work that you see has been done."
"I confess," said Lieutenant Procope, "we do not seem to have noticed that."
"Well, then," said Ben Zoof, "if you will be good enough to come
with me for about a mile, I shall be able to show you my companions.
But we must take our guns,"
"Why take our guns?" asked Servadac. "I hope we are not going to fight."
"No, not with men," said Ben Zoof; "but it does not answer to throw
a chance away for giving battle to those thieves of birds."
Leaving little Nina and her goat in the gourbi, Servadac, Count Timascheff,
and the lieutenant, greatly mystified, took up their guns and followed
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: your opinions and your conduct. You do not believe in God, and
yet you attend mass? My dear master, you are bound to give me an
answer."
"I am like a great many devout people, men who on the surface are
deeply religious, but quite as much atheists as you or I can be."
And he poured out a torrent of epigrams on certain political
personages, of whom the best known gives us, in this century, a
new edition of Moliere's Tartufe.
"All that has nothing to do with my question," retorted Bianchon.
"I want to know the reason for what you have just been doing, and
why you founded this mass."
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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 Dreams by Olive Schreiner: shattered; and the desert sand had half covered them over.
I said to God, "There is writing on them, but I cannot read it."
And God blew aside the desert sand, and I read the writing: "Weighed in
the balance, and found--" but the last word was wanting.
And I said to God, "It was a banquet-house?"
God said, "Ay, a banquet-house."
I said, "There was a wine-press here?"
God said, "There was a wine-press."
I asked no further question. I was very weary; I shaded my eyes with my
hand, and looked through the pink evening light.
Far off, across the sand, I saw two figures standing. With wings upfolded
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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 In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: know."
The Frau staggered across the room, flung herself on to her bed, drawing
the pink bolster round her shoulders.
It was almost dark in the kitchen. She laid the baby on the wooden settle,
covering him with a shawl, then poured the coffee from the earthenware jug
into the saucepan, and set it on the spirit lamp to boil.
"I'm sleepy," nodded the Child-Who-Was-Tired, kneeling on the floor and
splitting the damp pine logs into little chips. "That's why I'm not
awake."
The oven took a long time to light. Perhaps it was cold, like herself, and
sleepy...Perhaps it had been dreaming of a little white road with black
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