| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: The physiology, the chemical rhythm of the creature, may also be made
to undergo an enduring modification,--of which vaccination and other
methods of inoculation with living or dead matter are examples
that will, no doubt, be familiar to you. A similar operation is
the transfusion of blood,--with which subject, indeed, I began.
These are all familiar cases. Less so, and probably far more extensive,
were the operations of those mediaeval practitioners who made
dwarfs and beggar-cripples, show-monsters,--some vestiges of whose
art still remain in the preliminary manipulation of the young
mountebank or contortionist. Victor Hugo gives an account of them
in `L'Homme qui Rit.'--But perhaps my meaning grows plain now.
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: it comes last) That every man's wit must come from every man's own soul,--
and no other body's.
Now, as it was plain to my father, that all souls were by nature equal,--
and that the great difference between the most acute and the most obtuse
understanding--was from no original sharpness or bluntness of one thinking
substance above or below another,--but arose merely from the lucky or
unlucky organization of the body, in that part where the soul principally
took up her residence,--he had made it the subject of his enquiry to find
out the identical place.
Now, from the best accounts he had been able to get of this matter, he was
satisfied it could not be where Des Cartes had fixed it, upon the top of
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| 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: proceeded.
It had come to his knowledge, he said, that a foolish and wicked rumour
had been circulated at the time of Boxer's removal. Some of the animals
had noticed that the van which took Boxer away was marked "Horse
Slaughterer," and had actually jumped to the conclusion that Boxer was
being sent to the knacker's. It was almost unbelievable, said Squealer,
that any animal could be so stupid. Surely, he cried indignantly, whisking
his tail and skipping from side to side, surely they knew their beloved
Leader, Comrade Napoleon, better than that? But the explanation was really
very simple. The van had previously been the property of the knacker, and
had been bought by the veterinary surgeon, who had not yet painted the old
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 The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Of what Belshazzar couldn't read.
She feels, with all our furniture,
Room yet for something more secure
Than our self-kindled aureoles
To guide our poor forgotten souls;
But when we have explained that grace
Dwells now in doing for the race,
She nods -- as if she were relieved;
Almost as if she were deceived.
She frowns at much of what she hears,
And shakes her head, and has her fears;
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