| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: compelled to retreat; another, that the houses of two witnesses
near Clare Market were about to be pulled down when he came away;
another, that Sir George Saville's house in Leicester Fields was to
be burned that night, and that it would go hard with Sir George if
he fell into the people's hands, as it was he who had brought in
the Catholic bill. All accounts agreed that the mob were out, in
stronger numbers and more numerous parties than had yet appeared;
that the streets were unsafe; that no man's house or life was worth
an hour's purchase; that the public consternation was increasing
every moment; and that many families had already fled the city.
One fellow who wore the popular colour, damned them for not having
Barnaby Rudge |
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 Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: Kinesma. This edifice, with its massive white walls, and its
pyramidal roofs of green copper, stood upon a gentle mound to the
eastward of the town, overlooking it, a broad stretch of the Volga,
and the opposite shore. On a similar hill, to the westward, stood
the church, glittering with its dozen bulging, golden domes. These
two establishments divided the sovereignty of Kinesma between them.
Prince Alexis owned the bodies of the inhabitants, (with the
exception of a few merchants and tradesmen,) and the Archimandrite
Sergius owned their souls. But the shadow of the former stretched
also over other villages, far beyond the ring of the wooded
horizon. The number of his serfs was ten thousand, and his rule
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