| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: them, are as frigid as the zone itself--there the least quantity of
judgment imaginable does the business--and of wit--there is a total and an
absolute saving--for as not one spark is wanted--so not one spark is given.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us! what a dismal thing would it have
been to have governed a kingdom, to have fought a battle, or made a treaty,
or run a match, or wrote a book, or got a child, or held a provincial
chapter there, with so plentiful a lack of wit and judgment about us! For
mercy's sake, let us think no more about it, but travel on as fast as we
can southwards into Norway--crossing over Swedeland, if you please, through
the small triangular province of Angermania to the lake of Bothmia;
coasting along it through east and west Bothnia, down to Carelia, and so
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: in to ask me a service. He had done more things than I, and earned
more pence, though there were chances for cleverness I thought he
sometimes missed. I could only however that evening declare to him
that he never missed one for kindness. There was almost rapture in
hearing it proposed to me to prepare for THE MIDDLE, the organ of
our lucubrations, so called from the position in the week of its
day of appearance, an article for which he had made himself
responsible and of which, tied up with a stout string, he laid on
my table the subject. I pounced upon my opportunity - that is on
the first volume of it - and paid scant attention to my friend's
explanation of his appeal. What explanation could be more to the
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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 1984 by George Orwell: been quite enough to eat, one had never had socks or underclothes that
were not full of holes, furniture had always been battered and rickety,
rooms underheated, tube trains crowded, houses falling to pieces,
bread dark-coloured, tea a rarity, coffee filthy-tasting, cigarettes
insufficient--nothing cheap and plentiful except synthetic gin. And though,
of course, it grew worse as one's body aged, was it not a sign that this
was NOT the natural order of things, if one's heart sickened at the
discomfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters, the stickiness
of one's socks, the lifts that never worked, the cold water, the gritty
soap, the cigarettes that came to pieces, the food with its strange evil
tastes? Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind
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 Poems by T. S. Eliot: And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers.
Stretched on on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald)
brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
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