| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: extravagant. Observe some measure in your speech.
THE MAN. You speak now as Ben does.
THE LADY. And who, pray, is Ben?
THE MAN. A learned bricklayer who thinks that the sky is at the top
of his ladder, and so takes it on him to rebuke me for flying. I tell
you there is no word yet coined and no melody yet sung that is
extravagant and majestical enough for the glory that lovely words can
reveal. It is heresy to deny it: have you not been taught that in
the beginning was the Word? that the Word was with God? nay, that the
Word was God?
THE LADY. Beware, fellow, how you presume to speak of holy things.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: be fired simultaneously, with effects so devastating as to make retaliation
impossible. It will then be time to sign a pact of friendship with the
remaining world-power, in preparation for another attack. This scheme, it
is hardly necessary to say, is a mere daydream, impossible of realization.
Moreover, no fighting ever occurs except in the disputed areas round the
Equator and the Pole: no invasion of enemy territory is ever undertaken.
This explains the fact that in some places the frontiers between the
superstates are arbitrary. Eurasia, for example, could easily conquer the
British Isles, which are geographically part of Europe, or on the other
hand it would be possible for Oceania to push its frontiers to the Rhine
or even to the Vistula. But this would violate the principle, followed on
1984 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Koran: mate, and his brother and his kin who stand by him, and all who are in
the earth, that yet it might rescue him!
Nay, verily, it is a flame,-dragging by the scalp! it shall call
those who retreated and turned their backs and who amassed and
hoarded!
Verily, man is by nature rash! when evil touches him, very
impatient; when good touches him, niggardly; all save those who
pray, who remain at their prayers, and in whose wealth is a reasonable
due (set aside) for him who asks and him who is kept from asking,
and those who believe in a day of judgment, and those who shrink in
terror from the torment of their Lord;-verily, the torment of their
The Koran |
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 An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: has turned out a success. In all things connected with money I have
had a luck so extraordinary that sometimes it has made me almost
afraid. I remember having read somewhere, in some strange book, that
when the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
LORD GORING. But tell me, Robert, did you never suffer any regret
for what you had done?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. No. I felt that I had fought the century with
its own weapons, and won.
LORD GORING. [Sadly.] You thought you had won.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I thought so. [After a long pause.] Arthur,
do you despise me for what I have told you?
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