| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: many places, I believe I might say in all places where the distemper
came, as will be seen by the vast increase of the numbers placed in the
weekly bills under other articles of diseases during the time of the
infection. For example, in the months of July and August, when the
plague was coming on to its highest pitch, it was very ordinary to have
from a thousand to twelve hundred, nay, to almost fifteen hundred a
week of other distempers. Not that the numbers of those distempers
were really increased to such a degree, but the great number of
families and houses where really the infection was, obtained the
favour to have their dead be returned of other distempers, to prevent
the shutting up their houses. For example: -
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: This letter, which lies before me, is a narrative in his own handwriting,
linking together numerous newspaper clippings and facsimiles of letters. The
original correspondence, he has told me, is in the hands of the police. He has
begged me, also, as a warning to society against a most frightful and
diabolical danger which threatens its very existence, to make public the
terrible series of tragedies in which he has been innocently concerned. I
herewith append the text in full:
It was in August, 1899, just after my return from my summer vacation, that the
blow fell. We did not know it at the time; we had not yet learned to school
our minds to such awful possibilities. Mr. Hale opened the letter, read it,
and tossed it upon my desk with a laugh. When I had looked it over, I also
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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 A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: torrent and the occasional tinkling of a distant bell.
The spirit of the place was a sense of deep, pervading peace;
one might dream his life tranquilly away there, and not miss
it or mind it when it was gone.
The summer departed with the sun, and winter came with
the stars. It grew to be a bitter night in that little hotel,
backed up against a precipice that had no visible top to it,
but we kept warm, and woke in time in the morning to find
that everybody else had left for Gemmi three hours before--
so our little plan of helping that German family (principally
the old man) over the pass, was a blocked generosity.
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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 Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: warm, but I have noticed them now and then all day, and I don't
see that they are any happier there than they were before, only
quieter. When night comes I shall throw them out-doors. I will
not sleep with them again, for I find them clammy and unpleasant
to lie among when a person hasn't anything on.
Sunday
Pulled through.
Tuesday
She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad,
for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them;
and I am glad, because the snake talks, and this enables me to
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