| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: intelligence is to-day general in all classes, from the working-
classes to the upper strata of the bourgeoisie. The results
are envy, detraction, and a love of attack, of raillery, of
persecution, and a habit of attributing all actions to low
motives, of refusing to believe in probity, disinterestedness,
and intelligence.
Conversation, among the people as among the most cultivated
Frenchmen, is stamped with the craze for abasing and abusing
everything and everyone. Even the greatest of the dead do not
escape this tendency. Never were so many books written to
depreciate the merit of famous men, men who were formerly
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: While this was going on, fire was applied to various parts of the
paper pile, and in a moment a great flame sprang up into the
air--a flame that could be seen from miles around, and in less
time than it takes to tell it the whole was a heap of glowing
ashes, the mourners had departed, and the little street children
were stirring it up with long sticks.
The first three days after death, the spirit is supposed to visit
the different temples, going, as it were, from official court to
official court receiving judgment, and cards of merit or demerit
to take with it, for the deeds done in the body. On the third day
it returns to say farewell to the home, and then leaves for its
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Animal Farm by George Orwell: And yet the song was irrepressible. The blackbirds whistled it in the
hedges, the pigeons cooed it in the elms, it got into the din of the
smithies and the tune of the church bells. And when the human beings
listened to it, they secretly trembled, hearing in it a prophecy of their
future doom.
Early in October, when the corn was cut and stacked and some of it was
already threshed, a flight of pigeons came whirling through the air and
alighted in the yard of Animal Farm in the wildest excitement. Jones and
all his men, with half a dozen others from Foxwood and Pinchfield, had
entered the five-barred gate and were coming up the cart-track that led to
the farm. They were all carrying sticks, except Jones, who was marching
Animal Farm |
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 Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll: Conviction to a ghost,
And found it quite a different thing
From any human arguing,
Yet dared not quit my post
But, keeping still the end in view
To which I hoped to come,
I strove to prove the matter true
By putting everything I knew
Into an axiom:
Commencing every single phrase
With 'therefore' or 'because,'
|
