| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: Cavor meditated over that. "Yes," he said at last, "and we don't. There's
such differences - such differences!"
"One might. ... But how can I tell? There is speech. The sounds they make,
a sort of fluting and piping. I don't see how we are to imitate that. Is
it their speech, that sort of thing? They may have different senses,
different means of communication. Of course they are minds and we are
minds; there must be something in common. Who knows how far we may not get
to an understanding?"
"The things are outside us," I said. "They're more different from us than
the strangest animals on earth. They are a different clay. What is the
good of talking like this?"
The First Men In The Moon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: who don't cost a penny, but for whom a man spends millions. Give
yourself up to her, body and soul, if you choose; but keep your money
in your hand, like the old fellow in Girodet's 'Deluge.'"
From the tenor of these remarks it was to be inferred that the
princess had the depth of a precipice, the grace of a queen, the
corruption of diplomatists, the mystery of a first initiation, and the
dangerous qualities of a siren. The two clever men of the world,
incapable of foreseeing the denouement of their joke, succeeded in
presenting Diane d'Uxelles as a consummate specimen of the Parisian
woman, the cleverest of coquettes, the most enchanting mistress in the
world. Right or wrong, the woman whom they thus treated so lightly was
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