| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: be a considerable interval of adjustment and consultation
in the lobby, where the bridesmaids were already
hovering like a cluster of Easter blossoms. During this
unavoidable lapse of time the bridegroom, in proof of
his eagerness, was expected to expose himself alone to
the gaze of the assembled company; and Archer had
gone through this formality as resignedly as through all
the others which made of a nineteenth century New
York wedding a rite that seemed to belong to the dawn
of history. Everything was equally easy--or equally
painful, as one chose to put it--in the path he was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: 'You are improving. Intellectually there is very little wrong with you.
It is only emotionally that you have failed to make progress. Tell me,
Winston--and remember, no lies: you know that I am always able to detect
a lie--tell me, what are your true feelings towards Big Brother?'
'I hate him.'
'You hate him. Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step.
You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him: you must love
him.'
He released Winston with a little push towards the guards.
'Room 101,' he said.
Chapter 5
1984 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: in
common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that
the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.
He has not even a suspicion that the real point is to do away
with the status of women as mere instruments of production.
For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the
virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women
which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established
by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce
community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.
Our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of
The Communist Manifesto |
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 A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: absolutely ignorant of what a countess's love may be like. I have
often felt mortified that I, a poet, could not give myself a Beatrice,
a Laura, except in poetry. A pure and noble woman is like an unstained
conscience,--she represents us to ourselves under a noble form.
Elsewhere we may soil ourselves, but with her we are always proud,
lofty, and immaculate. Elsewhere we lead ill-regulated lives; with her
we breathe the calm, the freshness, the verdure of an oasis--"
"Go on, go on, my dear fellow!" cried Rastignac; "twang that fourth
string with the prayer in 'Moses' like Paganini."
Raoul remained silent, with fixed eyes, apparently musing.
"This wretched ministerial apprentice does not understand me," he
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