| 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: sensitivity, a sort of transparency, which made every movement, every
sound, every contact, every word that he had to speak or listen to, an
agony. Even in sleep he could not altogether escape from her image. He did
not touch the diary during those days. If there was any relief, it was in
his work, in which he could sometimes forget himself for ten minutes at a
stretch. He had absolutely no clue as to what had happened to her. There
was no enquiry he could make. She might have been vaporized, she might
have committed suicide, she might have been transferred to the other end
of Oceania: worst and likeliest of all, she might simply have changed her
mind and decided to avoid him.
The next day she reappeared. Her arm was out of the sling and she had a
1984 |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: end of the auditorium. All about that platform stood hundreds,
close packed, faces raised eagerly, the better to see the slight,
graceful, girlish figure occupying the center of the stage--a
figure strangely familiar to Jock's eyes in spite of its quaintly
billowing, ante-bellum garb. She was speaking. Jock, mouth
agape, eyes protruding, ears straining, heard, as in a daze, the
sweet, clear, charmingly modulated voice:
"The feature of the skirt, ladies and gentlemen, is that it
gives a fulness without weight, something which the skirt-maker
has never before been able to achieve. This is due to the patent
featherboning process invented by Mrs. T. A. Buck, of the T. A.
Emma McChesney & Co. |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: attributes to Socrates. Cf. Herod. vi. 129 concerning
Hippocleides; and Rich, "Dict. of Antiq." s.v. "Chironomia."
That's true, upon my life! (exclaimed the jester). One needs but look
at you to see there's not a dram of difference between legs and
shoulders.[41] I'll be bound, if both were weighed in the scales
apart, like "tops and bottoms," the clerks of the market[42] would let
you off scot-free.
[41] Lit. "your legs are equal in weight with your shoulders." Cf.
"Od." xviii. 373, {elikes . . . isophoroi boes}, "of equal age and
force to bear the yoke."--Butcher and Lang.
[42] See Boeckh, "Public Economy of Athens," p. 48; Aristoph.
The Symposium |
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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully,
O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto's tower,
Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lour
Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or
The Arno with its tawny troubled gold
O'er-leap its marge, no mightier conqueror
Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old
When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty
Walked like a bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery
Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell
With an old man who grabbled rusty keys,
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