| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: Russia, for purposes of this internal propaganda, is divided
into five sections, and each section has its own train,
prepared for the particular political needs of the section it
serves, bearing its own name, carrying its regular crew-a
propaganda unit, as corporate as the crew of a ship. The
five trains at present in existence are the "Lenin," the
"Sverdlov," the "October Revolution," the "Red East,"
which is now in Turkestan, and the "Red Cossack," which,
ready to start for Rostov and the Don, was standing, in the
sidings at the Kursk station, together with the "Lenin,"
returned for refitting and painting.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: it into a world where she was endowed with the supreme power.
She bent a blade of grass, and set an insect on the utmost tassel
of it, and wondered if the insect realised his strange adventure,
and thought how strange it was that she should have bent that tassel
rather than any other of the million tassels.
"You've never told me you name," said Hewet suddenly.
"Miss Somebody Vinrace. . . . I like to know people's Christian names."
"Rachel," she replied.
"Rachel," he repeated. "I have an aunt called Rachel, who put
the life of Father Damien into verse. She is a religious fanatic--
the result of the way she was brought up, down in Northamptonshire,
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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 The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: for I foresaw a time when it would be necessary to grow wheat. I was
sure of launching the place in a very prosperous agricultural career,
and of doubling the population, when once it had begun to work. And
now the time had come.
"M. Gravier, of Grenoble, owned a great deal of land in the commune,
which brought him in no rent, but which might be turned into corn-
growing land. He is the head of a department in the Prefecture, as you
know. It was a kindness for his own countryside quite as much as my
earnest entreaties that won him over. He had very benevolently yielded
to my importunities on former occasions, and I succeeded in making it
clear to him that in so doing he had wrought unconsciously for his own
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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 Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles: Bethink you that in seeking this ye seek
In very sooth my death or banishment?
CHORUS
No, by the leader of the host divine!
(Str. 2)
Witness, thou Sun, such thought was never mine,
Unblest, unfriended may I perish,
If ever I such wish did cherish!
But O my heart is desolate
Musing on our striken State,
Doubly fall'n should discord grow
Oedipus Trilogy |
