| 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: recognised as being the cleverest of the animals. Pre-eminent among the
pigs were two young boars named Snowball and Napoleon, whom Mr. Jones was
breeding up for sale. Napoleon was a large, rather fierce-looking
Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but
with a reputation for getting his own way. Snowball was a more vivacious
pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not
considered to have the same depth of character. All the other male pigs on
the farm were porkers. The best known among them was a small fat pig named
Squealer, with very round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble movements, and a
shrill voice. He was a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some
difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking
Animal Farm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: alone knows the horrors that poor unfortunate creature has survived.
She was locked up in a madhouse, in a little town in Germany, at the
time her relatives, thinking her dead, divided her property. In 1816,
the grenadier Fleuriot was at an inn in Strasburg, where she went
after making her escape from the madhouse. Several peasants told the
grenadier that she had lived for a whole month in the forest, where
they had tracked her in vain, trying to catch her, but she had always
escaped them. I was then staying a few miles from Strasburg. Hearing
much talk of a wild woman caught in the woods, I felt a desire to
ascertain the truth of the ridiculous stories which were current about
her. What were my feelings on beholding my own niece! Fleuriot told me
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: reasonable embonpoint. When very young, he bore some resemblance to
Bonaparte; and the likeness still continued, as much as a man with
black eyes and thick, dark hair could resemble a sovereign with blue
eyes and scanty, chestnut hair. But whatever there once was of ardent
and noble ambition in the great author's eyes had been somewhat
quenched by successes. The thoughts with which that brow once teemed
had flowered; the lines of the hollow face were filling out. Ease now
spread its golden tints where, in youth, poverty had laid the yellow
tones of the class of temperament whose forces band together to
support a crushing and long-continued struggle. If you observe
carefully the noble faces of ancient philosophers, you will always
|
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 Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: Seraphita was the motionless marble, light nevertheless as a vapor,
which Minna had seen that day poised above the precipices of the
Falberg. Could she thus stand on the edge of all gulfs without danger,
without a tremor of the arching eyebrows, or a quiver of the light of
the eye? If his love was to be without hope, it was not without
curiosity.
From the moment when Wilfrid suspected the ethereal nature of the
enchantress who had told him the secrets of his life in melodious
utterance, he had longed to try to subject her, to keep her to
himself, to tear her from the heaven where, perhaps, she was awaited.
Earth and Humanity seized their prey; he would imitate them. His
Seraphita |
