| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: me. But what is meant by bigotry, that we should regard it
as a blemish in a priest? Damien believed his own religion
with the simplicity of a peasant or a child; as I would I
could suppose that you do. For this, I wonder at him some
way off; and had that been his only character, should have
avoided him in life. But the point of interest in Damien,
which has caused him to be so much talked about and made him
at last the subject of your pen and mine, was that, in him,
his bigotry, his intense and narrow faith, wrought potently
for good, and strengthened him to be one of the world's
heroes and exemplars.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: powers merely continue to produce atomic bombs and store them up against
the decisive opportunity which they all believe will come sooner or later.
And meanwhile the art of war has remained almost stationary for thirty or
forty years. Helicopters are more used than they were formerly, bombing
planes have been largely superseded by self-propelled projectiles, and the
fragile movable battleship has given way to the almost unsinkable Floating
Fortress; but otherwise there has been little development. The tank, the
submarine, the torpedo, the machine gun, even the rifle and the hand
grenade are still in use. And in spite of the endless slaughters reported
in the Press and on the telescreens, the desperate battles of earlier wars,
in which hundreds of thousands or even millions of men were often killed
1984 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: "The marriage," Lady Mary continued with a shrug, "was made
on the basis of a mutual misunderstanding. Ellen, in the nature
of the case, believed that she was doing something quite out of
the ordinary in accepting him, and expected concessions which,
apparently, it never occurred to him to make. After his marriage
he relapsed into his old habits of incessant work, broken by
violent and often brutal relaxations. He insulted her friends
and foisted his own upon her--many of them well calculated to
arouse aversion in any well-bred girl. He had Ghillini
constantly at the house--a homeless vagabond, whose conversation
was impossible. I don't say, mind you, that he had not
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
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 Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: be retained in slavery by care and kind treatment."
The broker who negotiated the sale from Miller to
Belmonte, in 1838, testified in Court that he then
thought, and still thought, that the girl was white!
The case was elaborately argued on both sides,
but was at length decided in favour of the girl,
by the Supreme Court declaring that "she was
free and white, and therefore unlawfully held in
bondage."
The Rev. George Bourne, of Virginia, in his
Picture of Slavery, published in 1834, relates the
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
