| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: Winston had recovered part of his self-possession. 'Hardly scholarly,' he
said. 'I'm only an amateur. It's not my subject. I have never had anything
to do with the actual construction of the language.'
'But you write it very elegantly,' said O'Brien. 'That is not only my own
opinion. I was talking recently to a friend of yours who is certainly an
expert. His name has slipped my memory for the moment.'
Again Winston's heart stirred painfully. It was inconceivable that this
was anything other than a reference to Syme. But Syme was not only dead,
he was abolished, an unperson. Any identifiable reference to him would have
been mortally dangerous. O'Brien's remark must obviously have been intended
as a signal, a codeword. By sharing a small act of thoughtcrime he had
1984 |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: From the evident scale of the carvings we deduced that a steeply
descending walk of about a mile through either of the neighboring
tunnels would bring us to the brink of the dizzy, sunless cliffs
about the great abyss; down whose sides paths, improved by the
Old Ones, led to the rocky shore of the hidden and nighted ocean.
To behold this fabulous gulf in stark reality was a lure which
seemed impossible of resistance once we knew of the thing - yet
we realized we must begin the quest at once if we expected to
include it in our present trip.
It was now 8 P.M., and we did
not have enough battery replacements to let our torches burn on
At the Mountains of Madness |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: meant, and, on being informed of the cause of all this stir,
climbed up to his post of observation, where in spite of the
cold, he took his stand, with the telescope to his eye.
This telescope had not been of great service to him since
the autumn of 1671. The tulips, like true daughters of the
East, averse to cold, do not abide in the open ground in
winter. They need the shelter of the house, the soft bed on
the shelves, and the congenial warmth of the stove. Van
Baerle, therefore, passed the whole winter in his
laboratory, in the midst of his books and pictures. He went
only rarely to the room where he kept his bulbs, unless it
The Black Tulip |
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 Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: fifty-six tens, and another fifty-six tens, and then fifty-six
fives. . . .' He saw that it came out to more than twelve
thousand rubles, but could not reckon it up exactly without a
counting-frame. 'But I won't give ten thousand, anyhow. I'll
give about eight thousand with a deduction on account of the
glades. I'll grease the surveyor's palm--give him a hundred
rubles, or a hundred and fifty, and he'll reckon that there are
some five desyatins of glade to be deducted. And he'll let it
go for eight thousand. Three thousand cash down. That'll move
him, no fear!' he thought, and he pressed his pocket-book with
his forearm.
Master and Man |
