| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Macb. To morrow, as he purposes
Lady. O neuer,
Shall Sunne that Morrow see.
Your Face, my Thane, is as a Booke, where men
May reade strange matters, to beguile the time.
Looke like the time, beare welcome in your Eye,
Your Hand, your Tongue: looke like th' innocent flower,
But be the Serpent vnder't. He that's comming,
Must be prouided for: and you shall put
This Nights great Businesse into my dispatch,
Which shall to all our Nights, and Dayes to come,
Macbeth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: entered into our minds. True, it seemed most hazardous to strike a
blow of the hammer in this part of the earth's structure. Suppose
some displacement should occur and crush us all! Suppose the torrent,
bursting through, should drown us in a sudden flood! There was
nothing vain in these fancies. But still no fears of falling rocks or
rushing floods could stay us now; and our thirst was so intense that,
to satisfy it, we would have dared the waves of the north Atlantic.
Hans set about the task which my uncle and I together could not have
accomplished. If our impatience had armed our hands with power, we
should have shattered the rock into a thousand fragments. Not so
Hans. Full of self possession, he calmly wore his way through the
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: we bundled into it and got out into mid-stream, leaving behind
us the fragments of our meal and the screaming, foaming, stinking
mass of monsters in full possession of the ground.
'Those are the devils of the place,' said Umslopogaas with the
air of one who has solved a problem, and upon my word I felt
almost inclined to agree with him.
Umslopogaas' remarks were like his axe -- very much to the point.
'What's to be done next?' said Sir Henry blankly.
'Drift, I suppose,' I answered, and we drifted accordingly.
All the afternoon and well into the evening we floated on in
the gloom beneath the far-off line of blue sky, scarcely knowing
Allan Quatermain |
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 War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: shipping of all sorts that it is possible to imagine.
For after the sailors could no longer come up the Thames,
they came on to the Essex coast, to Harwich and Walton
and Clacton, and afterwards to Foulness and Shoebury, to
bring off the people. They lay in a huge sickle-shaped curve
that vanished into mist at last towards the Naze. Close inshore
was a multitude of fishing smacks--English, Scotch, French,
Dutch, and Swedish; steam launches from the Thames, yachts,
electric boats; and beyond were ships of large burden, a
multitude of filthy colliers, trim merchantmen, cattle ships,
passenger boats, petroleum tanks, ocean tramps, an old white
War of the Worlds |
