| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: Shoreditch parishes; but there was not ten people a week that died of
it in all that part of Stepney parish which takes in Limehouse, Ratdiff
Highway, and which are now the parishes of Shadwell and Wapping,
even to St Katherine's by the Tower, till after the whole month of
August was expired. But they paid for it afterwards, as I shall observe
by-and-by.
This, I say, made the people of Redriff and Wapping, Ratcliff and
Limehouse, so secure, and flatter themselves so much with the
plague's going off without reaching them, that they took no care either
to fly into the country or shut themselves up. Nay, so far were they
from stirring that they rather received their friends and relations from
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: Du Chatelet suffered for Chardon. Every one turned the cold shoulder
upon him; and Chatelet was conscious that he was attacked. When Mme.
de Bargeton called him "M. Chatelet," he swore to himself that he
would possess her; and now he entered into the views of the mistress
of the house, came to the support of the young poet, and declared
himself Lucien's friend. The great diplomatist, overlooked by the
shortsighted Emperor, made much of Lucien, and declared himself his
friend! To launch the poet into society, he gave a dinner, and asked
all the authorities to meet him--the prefect, the receiver-general,
the colonel in command of the garrison, the head of the Naval School,
the president of the Court, and so forth. The poet, poor fellow, was
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: dawn in thy chemise, gazing at thy young brow in thine ancient mirror!
And who, then, would forego the memory of those days of aurora
and the firmament, of flowers, of gauze and of moire, when love
stammers a charming slang? Our gardens consisted of a pot of tulips;
thou didst mask the window with thy petticoat; I took the earthenware
bowl and I gave thee the Japanese cup. And those great misfortunes
which made us laugh! Thy cuff scorched, thy boa lost! And that
dear portrait of the divine Shakespeare which we sold one evening
that we might sup! I was a beggar and thou wert charitable.
I kissed thy fresh round arms in haste. A folio Dante served us
as a table on which to eat merrily a centime's worth of chestnuts.
Les Miserables |
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 Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum: plainly.
Ten steps up, five steps down, and a turn, this way
or that. That was the program, and Dorothy figured that
they were only gaining five stairs upward each trip
that they made.
"Those Flatheads must be funny people," she said to
Ozma. "They don't seem to do anything in a bold
straightforward manner. In making this passage they
forced everyone to walk three times as far as is
necessary. And of course this trip is just as tiresome
to the Flatheads as it is to other folks."
Glinda of Oz |
