| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: before, his own ridiculous position, the bad taste and bad faith of
his behavior towards a woman so noble and so unfortunate. He reddened.
The thoughts that crowded in upon him could be read in his troubled
eyes; but suddenly, with the courage which youth draws from a sense of
its own wrongdoing, he gained confidence, and very humbly interrupted
Mme. de Beauseant.
"Madame," he faltered out, "I do not deserve the happiness of seeing
you. I have deceived you basely. However strong the motive may have
been, it can never excuse the pitiful subterfuge which I used to gain
my end. But, madame, if your goodness will permit me to tell you----"
The Vicomtesse glanced at M. de Nueil, haughty disdain in her whole
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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 House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: We pour in a sinister mass, we ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, with word upon murmured word,
We flow, we descend, we turn. . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves on among us like light, like evening air . . .
Good night! good night! good night! we go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.
Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky.
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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 1492 by Mary Johntson: He's a famous navigator.''
``Martin Pinzon?''
``Him too. But I meant our Admiral.''
``He hasn't had a ship for years!''
``He was of the best when he had one! I've beard old
Captain Ruy tell--''
``Maybe he wasn't crazy in those days, but he's crazy
now!''
That was Fernando. I think it was from him that certain
of the crew took the word ``crazy.'' They used it
until one would think that for pure variety's sake they
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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 The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: could not tell him. I had never thought of such a possibility before. He
showed me by calculations on paper, which Lord Kelvin, no doubt, or
Professor Lodge, or Professor Karl Pearson, or any of those great
scientific people might have understood, but which simply reduced me to a
hopeless muddle, that not only was such a substance possible, but that it
must satisfy certain conditions. It was an amazing piece of reasoning.
Much as it amazed and exercised me at the time, it would be impossible to
reproduce it here. "Yes," I said to it all, "yes; go on!" Suffice it for
this story that he believed he might be able to manufacture this possible
substance opaque to gravitation out of a complicated alloy of metals and
something new - a new element, I fancy - called, I believe, helium, which
The First Men In The Moon |
