| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: MERRIMAN. Shall I lay tea here as usual, Miss?
CECILY. [Sternly, in a calm voice.] Yes, as usual. [MERRIMAN
begins to clear table and lay cloth. A long pause. CECILY and
GWENDOLEN glare at each other.]
GWENDOLEN. Are there many interesting walks in the vicinity, Miss
Cardew?
CECILY. Oh! yes! a great many. From the top of one of the hills
quite close one can see five counties.
GWENDOLEN. Five counties! I don't think I should like that; I
hate crowds.
CECILY. [Sweetly.] I suppose that is why you live in town?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: grass under the trees. How we made the woods ring with
bursts of laughter at the songs of little Wagstaff and the merry
undertaker! After dinner, too, the young folks would play at
blind-man's-buff and hide-and-seek; and it was amusing to see
them tangled among the briers, and to hear a fine romping girl
now and then squeak from among the bushes. The elder folks
would gather round the cheesemonger and the apothecary to
hear them talk politics; for they generally brought out a
newspaper in their pockets, to pass away time in the country.
They would now and then, to be sure, get a little warm in
argument; but their disputes were always adjusted by reference
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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 The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: at present, than that it hath been in all ages defended by many
learned men, and among the rest by Socrates himself, whom I look
upon as undoubtedly the wisest of uninspir'd mortals: To which if
we add, that those who have condemned this art, though otherwise
learned, having been such as either did not apply their studies
this way, or at least did not succeed in their applications;
their testimony will not be of much weight to its disadvantage,
since they are liable to the common objection of condemning what
they did not understand.
Nor am I at all offended, or think it an injury to the art, when
I see the common dealers in it, the students in astrology, the
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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 1984 by George Orwell: swaying very faintly in the breeze, their leaves just stirring in dense
masses like women's hair. Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight,
there was a clear, slow-moving stream where dace were swimming in the
pools under the willow trees.
The girl with dark hair was coming towards them across the field. With
what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them
disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire
in him, indeed he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant
was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside.
With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture,
a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the
1984 |
