| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: trained men, cannot undertake for them alone great public works;
there are not three hundred bridges needed a year in all France;
the State can no more build great buildings for the fame of its
engineers than it can declare war merely to win battles and bring
to the front great generals; but, then, as men of genius have
never failed to present themselves when the occasion called for
them, springing from the crowd like Vauban, can there be any
greater proof of the uselessness of the present institution? Can't
they see that when they have stimulated a man of talent by all
those preparations he will make a fierce struggle before he allows
himself to become a nonentity? Is this good policy on the part of
|
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 1984 by George Orwell: the shade. It spread out its wings, fitted them carefully into place
again, ducked its head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance
to the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of song. In the
afternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Winston and Julia clung
together, fascinated. The music went on and on, minute after minute, with
astonishing variations, never once repeating itself, almost as though the
bird were deliberately showing off its virtuosity. Sometimes it stopped
for a few seconds, spread out and resettled its wings, then swelled its
speckled breast and again burst into song. Winston watched it with a sort
of vague reverence. For whom, for what, was that bird singing? No mate,
no rival was watching it. What made it sit at the edge of the lonely wood
1984 |
