| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: Not even that. He was just singing.'
The birds sang, the proles sang. the Party did not sing. All round the
world, in London and New York, in Africa and Brazil, and in the mysterious,
forbidden lands beyond the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin,
in the villages of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and
Japan--everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made monstrous
by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still singing.
Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come.
You were the dead, theirs was the future. But you could share in that
future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed
on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.
1984 |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: me, Kiddo! Take it from me!'"
Her last sentence was a quotation from Jim, her
imitation of his slang so perfect Mary's cheeks flamed
anew with anger.
"I'll teach him to use good English--never fear.
In a month he'll forget his slang and his red scarf."
"You mean that in a month you'll forget to use good
English and his style of dress will be yours. Oh,
honey, can't you see that such a man will only drag you
down, down to his level? Can it be possible that you--
that you really love him?"
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: and the silk weavers went back to their dens. Hitherto the canut had
been honest; the silk for his work was weighed out to him in hanks,
and he brought back the same weight of woven tissue; now he made up
his mind that the silk merchants were oppressing him; he put honesty
out at the door and rubbed oil on his fingers. He still brought back
weight for weight, but he sold the silk represented by the oil; and
the French silk trade has suffered from a plague of 'greased silks,'
which might have ruined Lyons and a whole branch of French commerce.
The masters and the government, instead of removing the causes of the
evil, simply drove it in with a violent external application. They
ought to have sent a clever man to Lyons, one of those men that are
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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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: all night, but sat at his table under the electric light turning
page after page with shaking hands as fast as he could decipher
the cryptic text. He had nervously telephoned his wife he would
not be home, and when she brought him a breakfast from the house
he could scarcely dispose of a mouthful. All that day he read
on, now and then halted maddeningly as a reapplication of the
complex key became necessary. Lunch and dinner were brought him,
but he ate only the smallest fraction of either. Toward the middle
of the next night he drowsed off in his chair, but soon woke out
of a tangle of nightmares almost as hideous as the truths and
menaces to man's existence that he had uncovered.
The Dunwich Horror |
