| 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: those that remained of them killed their meat at Mile End and that
way, and brought it to market upon horses.
However, the poor people could not lay up provisions, and there was
a necessity that they must go to market to buy, and others to send
servants or their children; and as this was a necessity which renewed
itself daily, it brought abundance of unsound people to the markets,
and a great many that went thither sound brought death home with them.
It is true people used all possible precaution. When any one bought
a joint of meat in the market they would not take it off the butcher's
hand, but took it off the hooks themselves. On the other hand, the
butcher would not touch the money, but have it put into a pot full of
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 Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: enough to be Alexander Smollett, bad as he is; and I thank my stars
upon my knees that I'm not Silver. But there's the ink-bottle
opening. To quarters!"
And indeed the Author was just then beginning to write the words:
CHAPTER XXXIII.
II. - THE SINKING SHIP.
"SIR," said the first lieutenant, bursting into the Captain's
cabin, "the ship is going down."
"Very well, Mr. Spoker," said the Captain; "but that is no reason
for going about half-shaved. Exercise your mind a moment, Mr.
Spoker, and you will see that to the philosophic eye there is
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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 House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: should greet him as young Jaffrey Pyncheon, the Judge's only
surviving child, who has been spending the last two years in
foreign travel. If still in life, how comes his shadow hither?
If dead, what a misfortune! The old Pyncheon property, together
with the great estate acquired by the young man's father, would
devolve on whom? On poor, foolish Clifford, gaunt Hepzibah, and
rustic little Phoebe! But another and a greater marvel greets us!
Can we believe our eyes? A stout, elderly gentleman has made his
appearance; he has an aspect of eminent respectability, wears a
black coat and pantaloons, of roomy width, and might be pronounced
scrupulously neat in his attire, but for a broad crimson stain
House of Seven Gables |
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 The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: through the middle of the island he presently discovered the
wreckage of the two Asiatic aeroplanes that had fallen out of the
struggle that ended the Hohenzollern.
With the first he found the wreckage of an aeronaut too.
The machine had evidently dropped vertically and was badly
knocked about amidst a lot of smashed branches in a clump of
trees. Its bent and broken wings and shattered stays sprawled
amidst new splintered wood, and its forepeak stuck into the
ground. The aeronaut dangled weirdly head downward among the
leaves and branches some yards away, and Bert only discovered him
as he turned from the aeroplane. In the dusky evening light and
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