| 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: complex way, involving doublethink, Syme swallowed it. Was he, then, ALONE
in the possession of a memory?
The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen. As
compared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses,
more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters,
more books, more babies--more of everything except disease, crime, and
insanity. Year by year and minute by minute, everybody and everything was
whizzing rapidly upwards. As Syme had done earlier Winston had taken up
his spoon and was dabbling in the pale-coloured gravy that dribbled across
the table, drawing a long streak of it out into a pattern. He meditated
resentfully on the physical texture of life. Had it always been like
1984 |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: house. It was already dawn, and he saw that
Prokofy was carrying away his harrow.
"Hey, what's that?" cried the deacon.
The neighbours rushed out from their houses.
Prokofy was seized, brought to the police station,
and then sentenced to eleven months' imprison-
ment. It was autumn, and Prokofy had to be
transferred to the prison hospital. He was
coughing badly; his chest was heaving from the
exertion; and he could not get warm. Those who
were stronger contrived not to shiver; Prokofy
The Forged Coupon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: that; and it kind of raises a man in his own liking. We're a
queer kind of beasts, Mr. Dodd."
The morning broke with sinister brightness; the air alarmingly
transparent, the sky pure, the rim of the horizon clear and
strong against the heavens. The wind and the wild seas, now
vastly swollen, indefatigably hunted us. I stood on deck,
choking with fear; I seemed to lose all power upon my limbs;
my knees were as paper when she plunged into the murderous
valleys; my heart collapsed when some black mountain fell in
avalanche beside her counter, and the water, that was more
than spray, swept round my ankles like a torrent. I was
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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 Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: "My child," she said, "the affair is won. In talking of property, I
found that Madame Evangelista gives nothing of her own to her
daughter. Mademoiselle Natalie's dowry is her patrimony. Marry her, my
dear boy. Men who have a name and an estate to transmit, a family to
continue, must, sooner or later, end in marriage. I wish I could see
my dear Auguste taking that course. You can now carry on the marriage
without me; I have nothing to give you but my blessing, and women as
old as I are out of place at a wedding. I leave for Paris to-morrow.
When you present your wife in society I shall be able to see her and
assist her far more to the purpose than now. If you had had no house
in Paris I would gladly have arranged the second floor of mine for
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