| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: they came upon these perilous coasts, the latter when they
took the soundings of its stormy banks.
We may also notice that, on the lunar sphere, the south pole is
much more continental than the north pole. On the latter, there
is but one slight strip of land separated from other continents
by vast seas. Toward the south, continents clothe almost the
whole of the hemisphere. It is even possible that the Selenites
have already planted the flag on one of their poles, while
Franklin, Ross, Kane, Dumont, d'Urville, and Lambert have never
yet been able to attain that unknown point of the terrestrial globe.
As to islands, they are numerous on the surface of the moon.
From the Earth to the Moon |
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 Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: faithfully too the traced way of an inexplicable impulse.
It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance of
contradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear at
times the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no
possible explanation. Indulgence--as somebody said--is the most
intelligent of all the virtues. I venture to think that it is
one of the least common, if not the most uncommon of all. I
would not imply by this that men are foolish--or even most men.
Far from it. The barber and the priest, backed by the whole
opinion of the village, condemned justly the conduct of the
ingenious hidalgo who, sallying forth from his native place,
Some Reminiscences |
