| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: that was seemingly irreconcilable with such personal defects.
She was very like her grandfather, the Duke of Casa-Real, a grandee of
Spain. At this moment, when we first see her, the charm which in
earlier days despotically grasped the soul of poets and lovers of
poesy now emanated from that head with greater vigor than at any
former period of her life, spending itself, as it were, upon the void,
and expressing a nature of all-powerful fascination over men, though
it was at the same time powerless over destiny.
When her eyes turned from the glass globes, where they were gazing at
the fish they saw not, she raised them with a despairing action, as if
to invoke the skies. Her sufferings seemed of a kind that are told to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Animal Farm by George Orwell: grave. At the graveside Snowball made a little speech, emphasising the
need for all animals to be ready to die for Animal Farm if need be.
The animals decided unanimously to create a military decoration, "Animal
Hero, First Class," which was conferred there and then on Snowball and
Boxer. It consisted of a brass medal (they were really some old
horse-brasses which had been found in the harness-room), to be worn on
Sundays and holidays. There was also "Animal Hero, Second Class," which
was conferred posthumously on the dead sheep.
There was much discussion as to what the battle should be called. In the
end, it was named the Battle of the Cowshed, since that was where the
ambush had been sprung. Mr. Jones's gun had been found lying in the mud,
Animal Farm |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: famous, he had done a little 'professional business.' This was the
phrase he applied to his purely commercial work. His friend,
Richard Phillips, for example, had induced him to undertake a number
of analyses, which produced, in the year 1830, an addition to his
income of more than a thousand pounds; and in 1831 a still greater
addition. He had only to will it to raise in 1832 his professional
business income to 5000L. a year. Indeed double this sum would be
a wholly insufficient estimate of what he might, with ease, have
realised annually during the last thirty years of his life.
While restudying the Experimental Researches with reference to the
present memoir, the conversation with Faraday here alluded to came
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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 Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: from his neck. "I'm no thief!"
"You are! You are, too!" she shrieked. "I heard
you sneak in the door downstairs--heard you slippin'
like a cat upstairs! Get out of here before I call a
cop!"
She was savagely pushing him back to the landing of
the stairs. With a sudden lurch, Jim freed himself and
gripped her hands.
"Cut it! Cut it! Or I'll knock your block off!
I've come to take my girl to ride----"
He drew a match and quickly lighted the gas as
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