| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: all bloody; and so he let it to be born to Constantinople. And yet
at Constantinople is the hinder part of the head, and the fore part
of the head, till under the chin, is at Rome under the church of
Saint Silvester, where be nuns of an hundred orders: and it is yet
all broilly, as though it were half-burnt, for the Emperor Julianus
above-said, of his cursedness and malice, let burn that part with
the other bones, and yet it sheweth; and this thing hath been
proved both by popes and by emperors. And the jaws beneath, that
hold to the chin, and a part of the ashes and the platter that the
head was laid in, when it was smitten off, is at Genoa; and the
Genoese make of it great feast, and so do the Saracens also. And
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: Everything else we shall destroy--everything. Already we are breaking down
the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We
have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and
between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend
any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends.
Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from
a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual
formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm.
Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except
loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of
Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over
1984 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: knight, which occupy about a fourth part of the poem. Leaving
this territory, he passes over valleys, mountains, woods,
forests, and bridges, till he arrives in a beautiful valley
covered with flowers on all sides, and the richest in the world;
but which was continually shifting its appearance from a round
figure to a square, from obscurity to light, and from
populousness to solitude. This is the region of Pleasure, or
Cupid, who is accompanied by four ladies, Love, Hope, Fear, and
Desire. In one part of it he meets with Ovid, and is instructed
by him how to conquer the passion of love, and to escape from
that place. After his escape he makes his confession to a friar,
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
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 Walden by Henry David Thoreau: that I too, who came a-fishing here, and looked like a loafer, was
getting my living like himself; that I lived in a tight, light, and
clean house, which hardly cost more than the annual rent of such a
ruin as his commonly amounts to; and how, if he chose, he might in a
month or two build himself a palace of his own; that I did not use
tea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did
not have to work to get them; again, as I did not work hard, I did
not have to eat hard, and it cost me but a trifle for my food; but
as he began with tea, and coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, he
had to work hard to pay for them, and when he had worked hard he had
to eat hard again to repair the waste of his system -- and so it was
Walden |
