| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: ness of age, for a drink of water. Instead of the voices
of her children, she hears by day the moans of the
dove, and by night the screams of the hideous owl.
All is gloom. The grave is at the door. And now,
when weighed down by the pains and aches of old
age, when the head inclines to the feet, when the
beginning and ending of human existence meet, and
helpless infancy and painful old age combine to-
gether--at this time, this most needful time, the time
for the exercise of that tenderness and affection
which children only can exercise towards a declining
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract, and look another way:
So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:
Unlook'd, on diest unless thou get a son.
VIII
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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 The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: twice as large as the lower, and that all three apartments
must be entered from a different side and level. Not a
window-sash remained.
The door of the lower room was smashed, and one panel hung in
splinters. We entered that, and found a fair amount of
rubbish: sand and gravel that had been sifted in there by
the mountain winds; straw, sticks, and stones; a table, a
barrel; a plate-rack on the wall; two home-made bootjacks,
signs of miners and their boots; and a pair of papers pinned
on the boarding, headed respectively "Funnel No. 1," and
"Funnel No. 2," but with the tails torn away. The window,
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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 Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: coffee-houses, drinking-houses, eating-houses, cook-shops, etc.,
and all in tents too; and so many butchers and higglers from all
the neighbouring counties come into the fair every morning with
beef, mutton, fowls, butter, bread, cheese, eggs, and such things,
and go with them from tent to tent, from door to door, that there
is no want of any provisions of any kind, either dressed or
undressed.
In a word, the fair is like a well-fortified city, and there is the
least disorder and confusion I believe, that can be seen anywhere
with so great a concourse of people.
Towards the latter end of the fair, and when the great hurry of
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