| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your
companion, away from the joys of life."
As I said this I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some
distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded
over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution;
his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man.
I was troubled; a mist came over my eyes, and I felt a faintness
seize me, but I was quickly restored by the cold gale of the mountains.
I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!)
that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage and horror,
resolving to wait his approach and then close with him in mortal combat.
Frankenstein |
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: standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.
The "dangerous class," the social scum, that passively rotting
mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here
and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian
revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more
for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.
In the conditions of the proletariat, those of old society at
large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without
property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer
anything in common with the bourgeois family-relations; modern
industrial labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in
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 The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: you.
LADY BRACKNELL. [Sitting down again.] A moment, Mr. Worthing. A
hundred and thirty thousand pounds! And in the Funds! Miss Cardew
seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her.
Few girls of the present day have any really solid qualities, any
of the qualities that last, and improve with time. We live, I
regret to say, in an age of surfaces. [To CECILY.] Come over
here, dear. [CECILY goes across.] Pretty child! your dress is
sadly simple, and your hair seems almost as Nature might have left
it. But we can soon alter all that. A thoroughly experienced
French maid produces a really marvellous result in a very brief
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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 I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for
many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here
today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with
our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our
freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march
ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the
devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can
never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue
of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and
the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the
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