| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: or say what should be done. In the stable we heard no more for some time,
as it was the men's dinner hour, but when Joe came next into the stable
I saw he was in high spirits; he gave me a good-natured slap, and said,
"We won't see such things done, will we, old fellow?" We heard afterward
that he had given his evidence so clearly, and the horses were in such
an exhausted state, bearing marks of such brutal usage, that the carter
was committed to take his trial, and might possibly be sentenced
to two or three months in prison.
It was wonderful what a change had come over Joe. John laughed,
and said he had grown an inch taller in that week, and I believe he had.
He was just as kind and gentle as before, but there was more purpose
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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: brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to
deny the evidence of your senses. In the end the Party would announce that
two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable
that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their
position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very
existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The
heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that
they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right.
For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the
force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past
and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is
1984 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: than we had been led to suppose. We should actually come to doubt
the fundamental necessity of some of our most sacred grammatical
constructions; and even our reverenced Latin grammars would lose
that air of awful absoluteness which so impressed us in boyhood.
An encouraging estimate of a certain missionary puts the amount of
study needed by the Western student for the learning of Japanese as
sufficient, if expended nearer home, to equip him with any three
modern European languages. It is certainly true that a completely
strange vocabulary, an utter inversion of grammar, and an elaborate
system of honorifics combine to render its acquisition anything but
easy. In its fundamental principles, however, it is alluringly
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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 Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Sam was whistling, an irritating bird call, over and over. She
pursed her red lips and answered him in kind. It was more than
I could endure.
"Sam or no Sam," I said firmly, "I am going to kiss you!"
But Sam's voice came strident through the megaphone. "Be good, you
two," he bellowed, "I've got the binoculars!" And so, under fire,
we walked sedately back to the house. My pulses were throbbing
- the little swish of her dress beside me on the grass was pain
and ecstasy. I had but to put out my hand to touch her, and I
dared not.
Sam, armed with a megaphone and field glasses, bent over the rail
The Man in Lower Ten |
