| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: She saw these things in that card, in that piece of white
pasteboard, as if she had seen them in a looking-glass.
The young women were frightened, and exclaimed: "That is quite
enough! Quite, quite enough!"
But the doctor said to her authoritatively: "You will get up at
eight o'clock to-morrow morning; then you will go and call on
your cousin at his hotel and ask him to lend you the five
thousand francs which your husband asks of you, and which he will
ask for when he sets out on his coming journey."
Then he woke her up.
On returning to my hotel, I thought over this curious seance and
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: for him. The Indian, perhaps thinking he was going to make a great bargain,
still refused.
Sir Francis Cromarty took Mr. Fogg aside, and begged him to reflect
before he went any further; to which that gentleman replied that
he was not in the habit of acting rashly, that a bet of twenty thousand
pounds was at stake, that the elephant was absolutely necessary to him,
and that he would secure him if he had to pay twenty times his value.
Returning to the Indian, whose small, sharp eyes, glistening with avarice,
betrayed that with him it was only a question of how great a price
he could obtain. Mr. Fogg offered first twelve hundred, then fifteen hundred,
eighteen hundred, two thousand pounds. Passepartout, usually so rubicund,
Around the World in 80 Days |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: realised how absolutely inferior he is; he is abjectly polite,
and contemptibly conciliatory; if a friend comes to see him,
he eagerly praises her in case she should be listening behind
the screen; he cannot call his soul his own, and, what is far
more intolerable, neither is he sure that his body really
belongs to him; he has read of ministering angels and the light
touch of a woman's hand, but the day on which he can ring
for his servant and put on his socks in private fills him
with the same sort of wildness of joy that he felt as a homesick
schoolboy at the end of his first term."
Minora was silent. Irais's foot was livelier than ever.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
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 Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: "Finally, what do you mean to do?" I asked.
"Eat what is left to the last crumb, and recruit our fading strength.
This meal will be our last, perhaps: so let it be! But at any rate we
shall once more be men, and not exhausted, empty bags."
"Well, let us consume it then," I cried.
My uncle took the piece of meat and the few biscuits which had
escaped from the general destruction. He divided them into three
equal portions and gave one to each. This made about a pound of
nourishment for each. The Professor ate his greedily, with a kind of
feverish rage. I ate without pleasure, almost with disgust; Hans
quietly, moderately, masticating his small mouthfuls without any
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
