| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: they foretold to him others that should be still more terrible in
eternity.
This vast baying filled Carthage with stupid continuity. Frequently a
single syllable--a hoarse, deep, and frantic intonation--would be
repeated for several minutes by the entire people. The walls would
vibrate with it from top to bottom, and both sides of the street would
seem to Matho to be coming against him, and carrying him off the
ground, like two immense arms stifling him in the air.
Nevertheless he remembered that he had experienced something like it
before. The same crowd was on the terraces, there were the same looks
and the same wrath; but then he had walked free, all had then
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: who set up to be the artists. I know several learned men have
contended that the whole is a cheat; that it is absurd and
ridiculous to imagine the stars can have any influence at all upon
human actions, thoughts, or inclinations; and whoever has not bent
his studies that way may be excused for thinking so, when he sees
in how wretched a manner that noble art is treated by a few mean
illiterate traders between us and the stars, who import a yearly
stock of nonsense, lies, folly, and impertinence, which they offer
to the world as genuine from the planets, though they descend from
no greater a height than their own brains.
I intend in a short time to publish a large and rational defence 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 The Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: hands showed through the fabric of her grey gloves. Her whole
attitude bore the impress of one who had adventured far beyond the
customary routine of her home circle, adventured out into the world
in fear and trembling, impelled by the stress of a great love.
A knock was heard at the door, and a small, slight man, with a kind,
smooth-shaven face, entered at the commissioner's call. "You sent
for me, sir?" he asked.
"Yes, Muller, there is a matter here in which I need your advice,
your assistance, perhaps. This is Detective Muller, Miss -" (the
commissioner picked up the card on his desk) "Miss Graumann. If
you will tell us now, more in detail, all that you can tell us about
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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 The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: German social conditions, this French literature lost all its
immediate practical significance, and assumed a purely literary
aspect. Thus, to the German philosophers of the eighteenth
century, the demands of the first French Revolution were nothing
more than the demands of "Practical Reason" in general, and the
utterance of the will of the revolutionary French bourgeoisie
signified in their eyes the law of pure Will, of Will as it was
bound to be, of true human Will generally.
The world of the German literate consisted solely in bringing
the new French ideas into harmony with their ancient
philosophical conscience, or rather, in annexing the French ideas
The Communist Manifesto |
