| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: imperfect combinations of the two elements in teachers or statesmen great
good may often arise.
Yet there is a higher region in which love is not only felt, but satisfied,
in the perfect beauty of eternal knowledge, beginning with the beauty of
earthly things, and at last reaching a beauty in which all existence is
seen to be harmonious and one. The limited affection is enlarged, and
enabled to behold the ideal of all things. And here the highest summit
which is reached in the Symposium is seen also to be the highest summit
which is attained in the Republic, but approached from another side; and
there is 'a way upwards and downwards,' which is the same and not the same
in both. The ideal beauty of the one is the ideal good of the other;
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: mountains. Then we let them go as best pleased them.
By now the desert bad turned slate-coloured, and the brush was
olive green with evening. The hard, uncompromising ranges,
twenty miles to eastward, had softened behind a wonderful veil of
purple and pink, vivid as the chiffon of a girl's gown. To the
south and southwest the Chiricahuas and Dragoons were lost in
thunderclouds which flashed and rumbled.
We jogged homewards, our cutting ponies, tired with the quick,
sharp work, shuffling knee deep in a dusk that seemed to
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: time and money. How did she act when yu' told her?"
"I've not told her."
"Not? Too kind o' not your business? Well, well! You'd ought to know
better 'n me. Only it don't seem right to let her--no, sir; it's not
right, either. Put it her brother was dead (and Miss. Fligg's husband
would like dearly to make him dead), you'd not let her come slap up
against the news unwarned. You would tell her he was sick, and start her
gently."
"Death's different," said I.
"Shucks! And she's to find him caged, and waiting for stripes and a
shaved head? How d' yu' know she mightn't hate that worse 'n if he'd been
|
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 1984 by George Orwell: Katharine would die, and by subtle manoeuvrings Winston and Julia would
succeed in getting married. Or they would commit suicide together. Or
they would disappear, alter themselves out of recognition, learn to speak
with proletarian accents, get jobs in a factory and live out their lives
undetected in a back-street. It was all nonsense, as they both knew. In
reality there was no escape. Even the one plan that was practicable,
suicide, they had no intention of carrying out. To hang on from day to day
and from week to week, spinning out a present that had no future, seemed
an unconquerable instinct, just as one's lungs will always draw the next
breath so long as there is air available.
Sometimes, too, they talked of engaging in active rebellion against the
1984 |
