| 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: and were consequently neglected. No new works found their way in,
and the obsolete old books were left uncared for and unvisited.
I have seen many old libraries, the doors of which remained unopened
from week's end to week's end; where you inhaled the dust of paper-decay
with every breath, and could not take up a book without sneezing;
where old boxes, full of older literature, served as preserves
for the bookworm, without even an autumn "battue" to thin the breed.
Occasionally these libraries were (I speak of thirty years ago)
put even to vile uses, such as would have shocked all ideas
of propriety could our ancestors have foreseen their fate.
I recall vividly a bright summer morning many years ago, when,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: they call it (that is, running westward) he reached the land not till he
came about the Falcon stairs, where landing, and finding no people
there, it being in the night, he ran about the streets there, naked as he
was, for a good while, when, it being by that time high water, he takes
the river again, and swam back to the Stillyard, landed, ran up the
streets again to his own house, knocking at the door, went up the stairs
and into his bed again; and that this terrible experiment cured him of
the plague, that is to say, that the violent motion of his arms and legs
stretched the parts where the swellings he had upon him were, that is
to say, under his arms and his groin, and caused them to ripen and
break; and that the cold of the water abated the fever in his blood.
A Journal of the Plague Year |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: pacification.
There was, for example, that 'man-milliner' who came out from a
field beside the road that rises up eastward out of Epernay, and
asked how things were going in Paris. He was, says Barnet, a
round-faced man, dressed very neatly in black--so neatly that it
was amazing to discover he was living close at hand in a tent
made of carpets--and he had 'an urbane but insistent manner,' a
carefully trimmed moustache and beard, expressive eyebrows, and
hair very neatly brushed.
'No one goes into Paris,' said Barnet.
'But, Monsieur, that is very unenterprising,' the man by the
The Last War: A World Set Free |
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 Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: manage to do it, Diksey?"
"I don't know," said Diksey modestly. "Perhaps
it's the radium, but I rather think it's my
splendid intellect."
If you don't quit it," the Scarecrow told him,
"there'll be a worse war than the one you've
escaped from."
Ojo had been deep in thought, and now he
asked the Chief: "Is there a dark well in any
part of your country?"
"A dark well? None that ever I heard of," was
The Patchwork Girl of Oz |
