| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: with waxed silk at their several insertions into the Morocco tube,--he
should be able to fire the six field-pieces all together, and with the same
ease as to fire one.--
--Let no man say from what taggs and jaggs hints may not be cut out for the
advancement of human knowledge. Let no man, who has read my father's first
and second beds of justice, ever rise up and say again, from collision of
what kinds of bodies light may or may not be struck out, to carry the arts
and sciences up to perfection.--Heaven! thou knowest how I love them;--thou
knowest the secrets of my heart, and that I would this moment give my
shirt--Thou art a fool, Shandy, says Eugenius, for thou hast but a dozen in
the world,--and 'twill break thy set.--
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Beat to death poor Pau-Puk-Keewis,
Pounded him as maize is pounded,
Till his skull was crushed to pieces.
Six tall hunters, lithe and limber,
Bore him home on poles and branches,
Bore the body of the beaver;
But the ghost, the Jeebi in him,
Thought and felt as Pau-Puk-Keewis,
Still lived on as Pau-Puk-Keewis.
And it fluttered, strove, and struggled,
Waving hither, waving thither,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are
uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but
restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. Then the face of Big
Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood
out in bold capitals:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on the
screen, as though the impact that it had made on everyone's eyeballs was
too vivid to wear off immediately. The little sandy-haired woman had flung
1984 |
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 Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: And we were contented!
Then a change came.
We ceased from our wanderings, and, camping upon one spot of earth, again
the labours of life were divided between us. While man went forth to hunt,
or to battle with the foe who would have dispossessed us of all, we
laboured on the land. We hoed the earth, we reaped the grain, we shaped
the dwellings, we wove the clothing, we modelled the earthen vessels and
drew the lines upon them, which were humanity's first attempt at domestic
art; we studied the properties and uses of plants, and our old women were
the first physicians of the race, as, often, its first priests and
prophets.
|
