| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: could not achieve the dearest wishes of his heart?
In this state of intellectual and moral depravity, he found a solace
in the renewal of his experiments with the mechanical powers of the
kite. For a couple of weeks he did not see Lady Arabella, who was
always on the watch for a chance of meeting him; neither did he see
the Watford girls, who studiously kept out of his way. Adam Salton
simply marked time, keeping ready to deal with anything that might
affect his friends. He called at the farm and heard from Mimi of
the last battle of wills, but it had only one consequence. He got
from Ross several more mongooses, including a second king-cobra-
killer, which he generally carried with him in its box whenever he
Lair of the White Worm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: must soon be used; when it only contains fifteen per cent.
of oxygen it is no longer fit to breathe."
"Right! But I told you, M. Aronnax, that the pumps of the Nautilus allow
me to store the air under considerable pressure, and on those conditions
the reservoir of the apparatus can furnish breathable air for nine
or ten hours."
"I have no further objections to make," I answered.
"I will only ask you one thing, Captain--how can you light your
road at the bottom of the sea?"
"With the Ruhmkorff apparatus, M. Aronnax; one is carried on the back,
the other is fastened to the waist. It is composed of a Bunsen pile,
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity,
half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered,
in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with
difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the
wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet
the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A
cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous
beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a
surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model,
but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a
finely-moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a
The Fall of the House of Usher |
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 On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: heads:- Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by
insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable
transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the
species being, as we see them, well defined?
Secondly, is it possible that an animal having, for instance, the structure
and habits of a bat, could have been formed by the modification of some
animal with wholly different habits? Can we believe that natural selection
could produce, on the one hand, organs of trifling importance, such as the
tail of a giraffe, which serves as a fly-flapper, and, on the other hand,
organs of such wonderful structure, as the eye, of which we hardly as yet
fully understand the inimitable perfection?
On the Origin of Species |
