| 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: wipe out the last traces of Jones's hated reign. The harness-room at the
end of the stables was broken open; the bits, the nose-rings, the
dog-chains, the cruel knives with which Mr. Jones had been used to
castrate the pigs and lambs, were all flung down the well. The reins, the
halters, the blinkers, the degrading nosebags, were thrown on to the
rubbish fire which was burning in the yard. So were the whips. All the
animals capered with joy when they saw the whips going up in flames.
Snowball also threw on to the fire the ribbons with which the horses'
manes and tails had usually been decorated on market days.
"Ribbons," he said, "should be considered as clothes, which are the mark
of a human being. All animals should go naked."
Animal Farm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: along with him.
The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a
coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall.
It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a
man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome
features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even
at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric
current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive
in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston,
who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went
slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the
1984 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: on everyone; they make all the members of the same class appear
alike, in spite of their private inclinations; they adorn and
they conceal the natural man. Amongst a democratic people
manners are neither so tutored nor so uniform, but they are
frequently more sincere. They form, as it were, a light and
loosely woven veil, through which the real feelings and private
opinions of each individual are easily discernible. The form and
the substance of human actions often, therefore, stand in closer
relation; and if the great picture of human life be less
embellished, it is more true. Thus it may be said, in one sense,
that the effect of democracy is not exactly to give men any
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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 Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: see again, now, with you. I worked through a whole winter, seeing
my head steam, and perceiving the atmosphere of my own moisture
as we see that of horses on a frosty day. I do not know where a
man finds the fulcrum that enables him to hold out against such a
life.
"I was alone, with no one to help me, no money to buy books or to
pay the expenses of my medical training; I had not a friend; my
irascible, touchy, restless temper was against me. No one
understood that this irritability was the distress and toil of a
man who, at the bottom of the social scale, is struggling to
reach the surface. Still, I had, as I may say to you, before whom
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