| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: But secondly, I said that when our ancestors got on well, they did
so because they got ventilation in spite of themselves. Luckily
for them, their houses were ill-built; their doors and windows
would not shut. They had lattice-windowed houses, too; to live in
one of which, as I can testify from long experience, is as
thoroughly ventilating as living in a lantern with the horn broken
out. It was because their houses were full of draughts, and still
more, in the early Middle Age, because they had no glass, and
stopped out the air only by a shutter at night, that they sought
for shelter rather than for fresh air, of which they sometimes had
too much; and, to escape the wind, built their houses in holes,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: too, with a great weight upon them; and several times I put ears of
barley and dry rice without setting the trap; and I could easily
perceive that the goats had gone in and eaten up the corn, for I
could see the marks of their feet. At length I set three traps in
one night, and going the next morning I found them, all standing,
and yet the bait eaten and gone; this was very discouraging.
However, I altered my traps; and not to trouble you with
particulars, going one morning to see my traps, I found in one of
them a large old he-goat; and in one of the others three kids, a
male and two females.
As to the old one, I knew not what to do with him; he was so fierce
Robinson Crusoe |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: shoulder to shoulder, both staring fixedly in front of them.
A long line of trucks, with wooden-faced guards armed with sub-machine
guns standing upright in each corner, was passing slowly down the street.
In the trucks little yellow men in shabby greenish uniforms were squatting,
jammed close together. Their sad, Mongolian faces gazed out over the sides
of the trucks utterly incurious. Occasionally when a truck jolted there
was a clank-clank of metal: all the prisoners were wearing leg-irons.
Truck-load after truck-load of the sad faces passed. Winston knew they
were there but he saw them only intermittently. The girl's shoulder, and
her arm right down to the elbow, were pressed against his. Her cheek was
almost near enough for him to feel its warmth. She had immediately taken
1984 |
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 Enemies of Books by William Blades: in a confined space. Some years ago when placing the shelves
round the small room, which, by a euphemism, is called my library,
I took the precaution of making two self-acting ventilators which
communicated directly with the outer air just under the ceiling.
For economy of space as well as of temper (for lamps of all kinds
are sore trials), I had a gasalier of three lights over the table.
The effect was to cause great heat in the upper regions,
and in the course of a year or two the leather valance which hung
from the window, as well as the fringe which dropped half-an-inch
from each shelf to keep out the dust, was just like tinder,
and in some parts actually fell to the ground by its own weight;
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