| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: alas! for the rats--the hole was closed up with bricks and cement.
Buried alive, the father and mother, with five or six of their
offspring, met with a speedy death, and not until a few years ago,
when a restoration of the Chapter House was effected, was the rat
grave opened again for a scaffold pole, and all their skeletons
and their nest discovered. Their bones and paper fragments
of the nest may now be seen in a glass case in the Chapter House,
some of the fragments being attributed to books from the press
of Caxton. This is not the case, although there are pieces of very
early black-letter books not now to be found in the Abbey library,
including little bits of the famous Queen Elizabeth's Prayer book,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: He hopes by you his fortunes yet may flourish.
FIRST LORD.
He had need mean better than his outward show
Can any way speak in his just commend;
For by his rusty outside he appears
To have practised more the whipstock than the lance.
SECOND LORD.
He well may be a stranger, for he comes
To an honour'd triumph strangely furnished.
THIRD LORD.
And on set purpose let his armour rust
|
