| 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: remembered a definite ruling against beds, went to the end of the barn and
tried to puzzle out the Seven Commandments which were inscribed there.
Finding herself unable to read more than individual letters, she fetched
Muriel.
"Muriel," she said, "read me the Fourth Commandment. Does it not say
something about never sleeping in a bed?"
With some difficulty Muriel spelt it out.
"It says, 'No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets,"' she announced
finally.
Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth Commandment
mentioned sheets; but as it was there on the wall, it must have done so.
Animal Farm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: probably two ideas in his brain, and was thinking of nothing.
Consequently I felt rather ashamed of wasting my powers of divination
"in anima vili,"--of a doltish financier.
While I was thus making, at a dead loss, these phrenological
observations, the worthy German had lined his nose with a good pinch
of snuff and was now beginning his tale. It would be difficult to
reproduce it in his own language, with his frequent interruptions and
wordy digressions. Therefore, I now write it down in my own way;
leaving out the faults of the Nuremburger, and taking only what his
tale may have had of interest and poesy with the coolness of writers
who forget to put on the title pages of their books: "Translated from
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