| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: "And we are your children," cried the twins.
Then all went on their knees, and holding out their arms cried,
"O Wendy lady, be our mother."
"Ought I?" Wendy said, all shining. "Of course it's
frightfully fascinating, but you see I am only a little girl. I
have no real experience."
"That doesn't matter," said Peter, as if he were the only
person present who knew all about it, though he was really the
one who knew least. "What we need is just a nice motherly
person."
"Oh dear!" Wendy said, "you see, I feel that is exactly what I
Peter Pan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Animal Farm by George Orwell: window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say
that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key of the
store-shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown
it down the well. Curiously enough, they went on believing this even after
the mislaid key was found under a sack of meal. The cows declared
unanimously that Snowball crept into their stalls and milked them in their
sleep. The rats, which had been troublesome that winter, were also said to
be in league with Snowball.
Napoleon decreed that there should be a full investigation into Snowball's
activities. With his dogs in attendance he set out and made a careful tour
of inspection of the farm buildings, the other animals following at a
Animal Farm |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: United States of America, where, true enough, the classes already exist,
but have not yet acquired permanent character, are in constant flux and
reflux, constantly changing their elements and yielding them up to one
another where the modern means of production, instead of coinciding with
a stagnant population, rather compensate for the relative scarcity of
heads and hands; and, finally, where the feverishly youthful life of
material production, which has to appropriate a new world to itself, has
so far left neither time nor opportunity to abolish the illusions of
old. [#3 This was written at the beginning of 1852.]
All classes and parties joined hands in the June days in a "Party of
Order" against the class of the proletariat, which was designated as the
|
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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: where, when one can love no more, one dies. . . ."
"And where one dies together!" said Paquita. "But do not let us start
to-morrow, let us start this moment . . . take Cristemio."
"Faith! pleasure is the fairest climax of life. Let us go to Asia; but
to start, my child, one needs much gold, and to have gold one must set
one's affairs in order."
She understood no part of these ideas.
"Gold! There is a pile of it here--as high as that," she said holding
up her hand.
"It is not mine."
"What does that matter?" she went on; "if we have need of it let us
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
