| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they
are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: Think! Why, you'd ride down into the village with those terrible
guns and kill my enemies--who are also my churchmen."
"I reckon I might be riled up to jest about that," he replied,
dryly.
She held out both hands to him.
"Lassiter! I'll accept your friendship--be proud of it--return
it--if I may keep you from killing another Mormon."
"I'll tell you one thing," he said, bluntly, as the gray
lightning formed in his eyes. "You're too good a woman to be
sacrificed as you're goin' to be....No, I reckon you an' me can't
be friends on such terms."
Riders of the Purple Sage |
| 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: therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the
machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt,
illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations.
And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of
automatic process--by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible
not to distribute--the machine did raise the living standards of the
average humand being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at
the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.
But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the
destruction--indeed, in some sense was the destruction--of a hierarchical
society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to
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 The Odyssey by Homer: cattle, so fair and goodly, were feeding not far from the ship;
the men, therefore, drove in the best of them, and they all
stood round them saying their prayers, and using young
oak-shoots instead of barley-meal, for there was no barley left.
When they had done praying they killed the cows and dressed
their carcasses; they cut out the thigh bones, wrapped them
round in two layers of fat, and set some pieces of raw meat on
top of them. They had no wine with which to make drink-offerings
over the sacrifice while it was cooking, so they kept pouring on
a little water from time to time while the inward meats were
being grilled; then, when the thigh bones were burned and they
The Odyssey |
