| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: And they would no doubt have gone farther still, if they had not
suddenly come to the end of the wide road which they had followed
since their entrance into the mine.
The gallery ended in an enormous cavern, neither the height nor
depth of which could be calculated. At what altitude arched
the roof of this excavation--at what distance was its opposite wall--
the darkness totally concealed; but by the light of the lamp the explorers
could discover that its dome covered a vast extent of still water--
pond or lake--whose picturesque rocky banks were lost in obscurity.
"Halt!" exclaimed Ford, stopping suddenly. "Another step,
and perhaps we shall fall into some fathomless pit."
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: finger shows the movement of the barometer. Yesterday it was so
high, yesterday night it fell, then this morning it rose again,
and so gently upward to here. Surely the mercury did not trace
this line in any of the dimensions of Space generally recognized?
But certainly it traced such a line, and that line, therefore,
we must conclude was along the Time-Dimension.'
`But,' said the Medical Man, staring hard at a coal in the
fire, `if Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is
it, and why has it always been, regarded as something different?
And why cannot we move in Time as we move about in the other
dimensions of Space?'
The Time Machine |
