| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: have we suffered?'
'Here, your Highness,' said Gotthold, 'is the ultimatum. It was in
the very article of signature, when your Highness so opportunely
entered.'
Otto laid the paper before him; as he read, his fingers played
tattoo upon the table. 'Was it proposed,' he inquired, 'to send
this paper forth without a knowledge of my pleasure?'
One of the non-combatants, eager to trim, volunteered an answer.
'The Herr Doctor von Hohenstockwitz had just entered his dissent,'
he added.
'Give me the rest of this correspondence,' said the Prince. It was
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: idolatry or heresy. But he that had no wedding garment is he
that believeth, but hath soiled his spiritual garment with
unclean acts, and was rightly cast forth from the joy of the
bride chamber.
"And he put forth yet another parable, in harmony with this, in
his picture of the Ten Virgins, `five of whom were wise, and five
were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps and took
no oil with them, but the wise took oil.' By the oil he
signifieth the acquiring of good works. `And at midnight,' he
saith, `there was a cry made, "Behold the bridegroom cometh, go
ye out to meet him."' By midnight he denoteth the uncertainty 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 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: place of the Executive Committee with a sort of dictatorial power.
Marrast, former editor-in-chief of the "National", became permanent
President of the Constitutional National Assembly, and the Secretaryship
of State, together with all the other important posts, devolved upon the
pure republicans.
The republican bourgeois party, which since long had looked upon itself
as the legitimate heir of the July monarchy, thus found itself surpassed
in its own ideal; but it cam to power, not as it had dreamed under Louis
Philippe, through a liberal revolt of the bourgeoisie against the
throne, but through a grape-shot-and-canistered mutiny of the
proletariat against Capital. That which it imagined to be the most
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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 Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: SHAKESPEAR. Oh, madam, I shall not forget myself again; though by my
life, could I make you a serving wench, neither a queen nor a virgin
should you be for so much longer as a flash of lightning might take to
cross the river to the Bankside. But since you are a queen and will
none of me, nor of Philip of Spain, nor of any other mortal man, I
must een contain myself as best I may, and ask you only for a boon of
State.
ELIZABETH. A boon of State already! You are becoming a courtier like
the rest of them. You lack advancement.
SHAKESPEAR. "Lack advancement." By your Majesty's leave: a queenly
phrase. _[He is about to write it down]._
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