| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: her no recommendation, and as Elinor was not blinded
by the beauty, or the shrewd look of the youngest,
to her want of real elegance and artlessness, she left
the house without any wish of knowing them better.
Not so the Miss Steeles.--They came from Exeter, well
provided with admiration for the use of Sir John Middleton,
his family, and all his relations, and no niggardly
proportion was now dealt out to his fair cousins, whom they
declared to be the most beautiful, elegant, accomplished,
and agreeable girls they had ever beheld, and with whom
they were particularly anxious to be better acquainted.--
Sense and Sensibility |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: forward to assist him.
Kantos Kan came close and whispered to me.
"Desist, I beg of you. It will but involve us all, for I
cannot see these men lay hands upon you without aiding you.
My officers and men will join me and we shall have a
mutiny then that may lead to the revolution. For the sake of
Tardos Mors and Helium, desist."
At his words I released Zat Arras and, turning my back
upon him, walked toward the ship's rail.
"Come, Kantos Kan," I said, "the Prince of Helium
would return to the Xavarian."
The Gods of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: commands were unequivocal, and hanging was the order of the day.
It is not my desire at this stage to surfeit you with the horrors that
were perpetrated during that hideous week of July, when no man's life
was safe from the royal butchers. The awful campaign of Jeifreys and
his four associates was yet to follow, but it is doubtful if it could
compare in ruthlessness with that of Feversham and Kirke. At least,
when Jeifreys came, men were given a trial - or what looked like it -
and there remained them a chance, however slender, of acquittal, as
many lived to prove thereafter. With Feversham there was no such
chance. And it was of this circumstance that Sir Rowland Blake took the
fullest and the cowardliest advantage.
|
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 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: working in the dark when they carried the dead, that in some places
no account at all was kept, but they worked on, the clerks and sextons
not attending for weeks together, and not knowing what number they
carried. This account is verified by the following bills of mortality: -
Of all of the
Diseases. Plague
From August 8 to August 15 5319 3880
" " 15 " 22 5568 4237
" " 22 " 29 7496 6102
" " 29 to September 5 8252 6988
" September 5 " 12 7690 6544
A Journal of the Plague Year |
