| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: that in so great and populous a city as this is it was impossible to
discover every house that was infected as soon as it was so, or to shut
up all the houses that were infected; so that people had the liberty of
going about the streets, even where they Pleased, unless they were
known to belong to such-and-such infected houses.
It is true that, as several physicians told my Lord Mayor, the fury of
the contagion was such at some particular times, and people sickened
so fast and died so soon, that it was impossible, and indeed to no
purpose, to go about to inquire who was sick and who was well, or to
shut them up with such exactness as the thing required, almost every
house in a whole street being infected, and in many places every
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: on the continued existence of these relations; reforms,
therefore, that in no respect affect the
relations between capital and labour, but, at the best, lessen
the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois
government.
Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression, when, and only
when, it becomes a mere figure of speech.
Free trade: for the benefit of the working class. Protective
duties: for the benefit of the working class. Prison Reform: for
the benefit of the working class. This is the last word and the
only seriously meant word of bourgeois Socialism.
The Communist Manifesto |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: your brother.' Then he gave him gold and lands and flocks, and made
him so rich that his brother's fortune could not at all be compared
with his.
When the brother heard of all this, and how a turnip had made the
gardener so rich, he envied him sorely, and bethought himself how he
could contrive to get the same good fortune for himself. However, he
determined to manage more cleverly than his brother, and got together
a rich present of gold and fine horses for the king; and thought he
must have a much larger gift in return; for if his brother had
received so much for only a turnip, what must his present be wroth?
The king took the gift very graciously, and said he knew not what to
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
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 Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: torted his mother as she trailed after him in the direc-
tion of the front hall. "'N' whatever you got, you got 'em
bad. Now you stop right where you air 'n' tell me what-
ever you got. 'Taint likely its measles, fer you've hed
them three times, 'n' whoopin' cough ain't 'them,' it's 'it,'
'n'--." Mrs. Case paused and gasped--horrified. "Fer lan'
sakes, Willie Case, you come right out o' this house this
minute ef you got anything in your head." She made a
grab for Willie's arm; but the boy dodged and reached
the telephone.
"Shucks!" he cried. "I ain't got nothin' in my head,"
The Oakdale Affair |
