| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it.
She felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group.
It would have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation.
"Why not, Mother? I mean it."
"You pain me, my son. I trust you will return from Australia in a position
of affluence. I believe there is no society of any kind in the Colonies--
nothing that I would call society--so when you have made your fortune,
you must come back and assert yourself in London."
"Society!" muttered the lad. "I don't want to know anything about that.
I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the stage.
I hate it."
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: fans - twict or three times as big as any they is - hed of ben
paounded dawon into the rud. An' the smell was awful, like what
it is around Wizard Whateley's ol' haouse...'
Here he faltered,
and seemed to shiver afresh with the fright that had sent him
flying home. Mrs Corey, unable to extract more information, began
telephoning the neighbours; thus starting on its rounds the overture
of panic that heralded the major terrors. When she got Sally Sawyer,
housekeeper at Seth Bishop's, the nearest place to Whateley's,
it became her turn to listen instead of transmit; for Sally's
boy Chauncey, who slept poorly, had been up on the hill towards
The Dunwich Horror |
| 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: had just noticed this when a cry of despair broke from every animal's
throat. A terrible sight had met their eyes. The windmill was in ruins.
With one accord they dashed down to the spot. Napoleon, who seldom moved
out of a walk, raced ahead of them all. Yes, there it lay, the fruit of
all their struggles, levelled to its foundations, the stones they had
broken and carried so laboriously scattered all around. Unable at first to
speak, they stood gazing mournfully at the litter of fallen stone. Napoleon
paced to and fro in silence, occasionally snuffing at the ground. His tail
had grown rigid and twitched sharply from side to side, a sign in him of
intense mental activity. Suddenly he halted as though his mind were
made up.
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 Crito by Plato: been neutral in the death-struggle of Athens was not likely to conciliate
popular good-will. Plato, writing probably in the next generation,
undertakes the defence of his friend and master in this particular, not to
the Athenians of his day, but to posterity and the world at large.
Whether such an incident ever really occurred as the visit of Crito and the
proposal of escape is uncertain: Plato could easily have invented far more
than that (Phaedr.); and in the selection of Crito, the aged friend, as the
fittest person to make the proposal to Socrates, we seem to recognize the
hand of the artist. Whether any one who has been subjected by the laws of
his country to an unjust judgment is right in attempting to escape, is a
thesis about which casuists might disagree. Shelley (Prose Works) is of
|
