| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: lay apparently lifeless. Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan--
did they still breathe? or was the projectile nothing now but a
metal coffin, bearing three corpses into space?
Some minutes after the departure of the projectile, one of
the bodies moved, shook its arms, lifted its head, and finally
succeeded in getting on its knees. It was Michel Ardan. He felt
himself all over, gave a sonorous "Hem!" and then said:
"Michel Ardan is whole. How about the others?"
The courageous Frenchman tried to rise, but could not stand.
His head swam, from the rush of blood; he was blind; he was a
drunken man.
From the Earth to the Moon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: Between the blasts of northwind and of south,
Heaven keeps his two goals parted equally,
By virtue of the fixed position old
Of the whole starry Zodiac, through which
That sun, in winding onward, takes a year,
Illumining the sky and all the lands
With oblique light- as men declare to us
Who by their diagrams have charted well
Those regions of the sky which be adorned
With the arranged signs of Zodiac.
Or else, because in certain parts the air
Of The Nature of Things |
