| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Animal Farm by George Orwell: Every beast great or small
Sleeps at peace in his stall,
Thou watchest over all,
Comrade Napoleon!
Had I a sucking-pig,
Ere he had grown as big
Even as a pint bottle or as a rolling-pin,
He should have learned to be
Faithful and true to thee,
Yes, his first squeak should be
"Comrade Napoleon!"
Animal Farm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: him; she read his books, and was fired with enthusiasm, less perhaps
for his talents than for his successes with women; and to attract him
to the country, she started the notion that it was obligatory on
Sancerre to return one of its great men at the elections. She made
Gatien Boirouge write to the great physician Bianchon, whom he claimed
as a cousin through the Popinots. Then she persuaded an old friend of
the departed Madame Lousteau to stir up the journalist's ambitions by
letting him know that certain persons in Sancerre were firmly bent on
electing a deputy from among the distinguished men in Paris.
Tired of her commonplace neighbors, Madame de la Baudraye would thus
at last meet really illustrious men, and might give her fall the
The Muse of the Department |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: I, too, spoke under my breath.
"Nobody is likely to come in here without knocking and getting permission."
He nodded. His face was thin and the sunburn faded, as though
he had been ill. And no wonder. He had been, I heard presently,
kept under arrest in his cabin for nearly seven weeks.
But there was nothing sickly in his eyes or in his expression.
He was not a bit like me, really; yet, as we stood leaning
over my bed place, whispering side by side, with our dark heads
together and our backs to the door, anybody bold enough to open
it stealthily would have been treated to the uncanny sight
of a double captain busy talking in whispers with his other self.
The Secret Sharer |
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 Moby Dick by Herman Melville: the Manillas;--a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty,
and by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies and
secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord,
whose counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere.
While yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon these
strangers, Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their
head, "All ready there, Fedallah?"
"Ready," was the half-hissed reply.
"Lower away then; d'ye hear?" shouting across the deck. "Lower away
there, I say."
Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement the
Moby Dick |
