| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: deliver it."
"Henry," says my lady, "you are not ill?"
"No, no," says be, querulously, "I am occupied. Not at all; I am
only occupied. It is a singular thing a man must be supposed to be
ill when he has any business! Send me supper to this room, and a
basket of wine: I expect the visit of a friend. Otherwise I am
not to be disturbed."
And with that he once more shut himself in.
The note was addressed to one Captain Harris, at a tavern on the
portside. I knew Harris (by reputation) for a dangerous
adventurer, highly suspected of piracy in the past, and now
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: Tooth that poisons if it bite;
Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,
Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,
Bobtail tyke or trundle-tail-
Tom will make them weep and wail;
For, with throwing thus my head,
Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.
Do de, de, de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes and fairs and
market
towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.
Lear. Then let them anatomize Regan. See what breeds about her
King Lear |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: him if she might make a request. Permission having been accorded,
she explained that before she finally left Diana's Grove, where she
had lived so long, she had a desire to know the depth of the well-
hole. Adam was really happy to meet her wishes, not from any
sentiment, but because he wished to give some valid and ostensible
reason for examining the passage of the Worm, which would obviate
any suspicion resulting from his being on the premises. He brought
from London a Kelvin sounding apparatus, with a sufficient length of
piano-wire for testing any probable depth. The wire passed easily
over the running wheel, and when this was once fixed over the hole,
he was satisfied to wait till the most advantageous time for his
Lair of the White Worm |
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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: down from the Acropolis, Hamilcar raised his head, and looked with
folded arms upon the temple of Eschmoun. His gaze mounted higher
still, to the great pure sky; he shouted an order in a harsh voice to
his sailors; the trireme leaped forward; it grazed the idol set up at
the corner of the mole to stay the storms; and in the merchant
harbour, which was full of filth, fragments of wood, and rinds of
fruit, it pushed aside and crushed against the other ships moored to
stakes and terminating in crocodiles' jaws. The people hastened
thither, and some threw themselves into the water to swim to it. It
was already at the very end before the gate which bristled with nails.
The gate rose, and the trireme disappeared beneath the deep arch.
Salammbo |
