| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: warning of imprudence; committed quite unconsciously, believe it,
my friend. You know how to endure, you say. I also know how to
endure. We will not see each other for a time; and then, when
both of us have contrived to recover calmness to some extent, we
will think about arrangements for a happiness sanctioned by the
world. I am young, Armand; a man with no delicacy might tempt a
woman of four-and-twenty to do many foolish, wild things for his
sake. But YOU! You will be my friend, promise me that you
will?"
"The woman of four-and-twenty," returned he, "knows what she
is about."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: fashionable papers, which usually combine capable art criticism
with West-End solecism on politics and sociology. It is very
noteworthy, however, on comparing the press explosion produced by
Mrs Warren's Profession in 1902 with that produced by Widowers'
Houses about ten years earlier, that whereas in 1892 the facts
were frantically denied and the persons of the drama flouted as
monsters of wickedness, in 1902 the facts are admitted and the
characters recognized, though it is suggested that this is
exactly why no gentleman should mention them in public. Only one
writer has ventured to imply this time that the poverty mentioned
by Mrs Warren has since been quietly relieved, and need not have
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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 Middlemarch by George Eliot: he added imaginary facts both present and future which become more
real to him than those because they called up a stronger dislike,
a more predominating bitterness. Suspicion and jealousy of Will
Ladislaw's intentions, suspicion and jealousy of Dorothea's impressions,
were constantly at their weaving work. It would be quite unjust
to him to suppose that he could have entered into any coarse
misinterpretation of Dorothea: his own habits of mind and conduct,
quite as much as the open elevation of her nature, saved him
from any such mistake. What he was jealous of was her opinion,
the sway that might be given to her ardent mind in its judgments,
and the future possibilities to which these might lead her.
Middlemarch |
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 1984 by George Orwell: been better unsaid, he had read too many books, he frequented the Chestnut
Tree Cafe, haunt of painters and musicians. There was no law, not even an
unwritten law, against frequenting the Chestnut Tree Cafe, yet the place
was somehow ill-omened. The old, discredited leaders of the Party had been
used to gather there before they were finally purged. Goldstein himself,
it was said, had sometimes been seen there, years and decades ago. Syme's
fate was not difficult to foresee. And yet it was a fact that if Syme
grasped, even for three seconds, the nature of his, Winston's, secret
opinions, he would betray him instantly to the Thought Police. So would
anybody else, for that matter: but Syme more than most. Zeal was not
enough. Orthodoxy was unconsciousness.
1984 |
