| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: the vanished three hundred dollars. It was the sum she had set
aside to pacify her dress-maker--unless she should decide to use
it as a sop to the jeweller. At any rate, she had so many
uses for it that its very insufficiency had caused her to play
high in the hope of doubling it. But of course she had lost--she
who needed every penny, while Bertha Dorset, whose husband
showered money on her, must have pocketed at least five hundred,
and Judy Trenor, who could have afforded to lose a thousand a
night, had left the table clutching such a heap of bills that she
had been unable to shake hands with her guests when they bade her
good night.
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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 Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Dorothy was thinking so earnestly as they walked along that
she did not notice when the Scarecrow stumbled into a hole and
rolled over to the side of the road. Indeed he was obliged to
call to her to help him up again.
"Why didn't you walk around the hole?" asked the Tin Woodman.
"I don't know enough," replied the Scarecrow cheerfully.
"My head is stuffed with straw, you know, and that is why I am
going to Oz to ask him for some brains."
"Oh, I see," said the Tin Woodman. "But, after all, brains
are not the best things in the world."
"Have you any?" inquired the Scarecrow.
The Wizard of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott: his cap in sign of reverence--"a word which was never broken
towards friend or foe. What, Nazarene, wouldst thou demand
more?"
"I would have ocular proof of thy skill," said the baron, "and
without it thou approachest not to the couch of King Richard."
"The praise of the physician," said the Arabian, "is in the
recovery of his patient. Behold this sergeant, whose blood has
been dried up by the fever which has whitened your camp with
skeletons, and against which the art of Your Nazarene leeches
hath been like a silken doublet against a lance of steel. Look
at his fingers and arms, wasted like the claws and shanks of the
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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 Animal Farm by George Orwell: tried to puzzle out the Seven Commandments which were inscribed there.
Finding herself unable to read more than individual letters, she fetched
Muriel.
"Muriel," she said, "read me the Fourth Commandment. Does it not say
something about never sleeping in a bed?"
With some difficulty Muriel spelt it out.
"It says, 'No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets,"' she announced
finally.
Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth Commandment
mentioned sheets; but as it was there on the wall, it must have done so.
And Squealer, who happened to be passing at this moment, attended by two
Animal Farm |
