| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: Yea with these hands all gory I pollute
The bed of him I slew. Say, am I vile?
Am I not utterly unclean, a wretch
Doomed to be banished, and in banishment
Forgo the sight of all my dearest ones,
And never tread again my native earth;
Or else to wed my mother and slay my sire,
Polybus, who begat me and upreared?
If one should say, this is the handiwork
Of some inhuman power, who could blame
His judgment? But, ye pure and awful gods,
Oedipus Trilogy |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: answers to correspondents, and set himself to roll a
cigarette. He was no master of the art; again and again, the
paper broke between his fingers and the tobacco showered upon
the ground; and he was already on the point of angry
resignation, when the window swung slowly inward, the silken
curtain was thrust aside, and a lady, somewhat strangely
attired, stepped forth upon the terrace.
'Senorito,' said she, and there was a rich thrill in her
voice, like an organ note, 'Senorito, you are in
difficulties. Suffer me to come to your assistance.'
With the words, she took the paper and tobacco from his
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: ear, and gazing down the road with shaded eyes. And as yet
there was no sign for the senses, not a sound, not a tremor
of the mountain road. The birds, to whom the secret of the
hooting cuckoo is unknown, must have set down to instinct
this premonitory bustle.
And then the first of the two stages swooped upon the Toll
House with a roar and in a cloud of dust; and the shock had
not yet time to subside, before the second was abreast of it.
Huge concerns they were, well-horsed and loaded, the men in
their shirt-sleeves, the women swathed in veils, the long
whip cracking like a pistol; and as they charged upon that
|
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: the country and had retreats among their friends, generally found
some or other of their neighbours or relations to commit the charge of
those houses to for the safety of the goods and the like. Some houses
were, indeed, entirely locked up, the doors padlocked, the windows
and doors having deal boards nailed over them, and only the
inspection of them committed to the ordinary watchmen and parish
officers; bat these were but few.
It was thought that there were not less than 10,000 houses forsaken
of the inhabitants in the city and suburbs, including what was in the
out-parishes and in Surrey, or the side of the water they called
Southwark. This was besides the numbers of lodgers, and of
A Journal of the Plague Year |
