| 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: be our fault, our own lack of vigilance, if we are taken by surprise."
And so the conversation dropped.
The 15th of January dawned; and the comet was 220,000,000 leagues
from the sun.
Gallia had reached its aphelion.
CHAPTER XIII
DREARY MONTHS
Henceforth, then, with a velocity ever increasing, Gallia would
re-approach the sun.
Except the thirteen Englishmen who had been left at Gibraltar,
every living creature had taken refuge in the dark abyss
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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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: natures. Scott again, the ever delightful man, sane, courageous,
admirable; the birth of Romance, in a dawn that was a sunset;
snobbery, conservatism, the wrong thread in History, and notably in
that of his own land. VOILA, MADAME, LE MENU. COMMENT LE TROUVEZ-
VOUS? IL Y A DE LA BONNE VIANDO, SI ON PARVIENT A LA CUIRE
CONVENABLEMENT.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
[MENTONE, MARCH 28, 1874.]
MY DEAR MOTHER, - Beautiful weather, perfect weather; sun, pleasant
cooling winds; health very good; only incapacity to write.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: In singing with the swan: let Tityrus
Be Orpheus, Orpheus in the forest-glade,
Arion 'mid his dolphins on the deep.
"Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.
Yea, be the whole earth to mid-ocean turned!
Farewell, ye woodlands I from the tall peak
Of yon aerial rock will headlong plunge
Into the billows: this my latest gift,
From dying lips bequeathed thee, see thou keep.
Cease now, my flute, now cease Maenalian lays."
Thus Damon: but do ye, Pierian Maids-
|
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 Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: enlisted the aid of our tyrants, and came to seize, by force, a box
that contained the precious papers. Lambert and I defended it with
incredible courage. The trunk was locked, our aggressors could not
open it, but they tried to smash it in the struggle, a stroke of
malignity at which we shrieked with rage. Some of the boys, with a
sense of justice, or struck perhaps by our heroic defence, advised the
attacking party to leave us in peace, crushing us with insulting
contempt. But suddenly, brought to the spot by the noise of a battle,
Father Haugoult roughly intervened, inquiring as to the cause of the
fight. Our enemies had interrupted us in writing our impositions, and
the class-master came to protect his slaves. The foe, in self-defence,
Louis Lambert |
