| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: to these hardships. But when you said to me, Nadia, that
winter would not have stopped you, that you would have
gone alone, ready to struggle against the frightful Siberian
climate, I seemed to see you lost in the snow and falling,
never to rise again."
"How many times have you crossed the steppe in win-
ter?" asked the young Livonian.
"Three times, Nadia, when I was going to Omsk."
"And what were you going to do at Omsk?"
"See my mother, who was expecting me."
"And I am going to Irkutsk, where my father expects
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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: All previous historical movements were movements of minorities,
or in the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is
the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority,
in the interests of the immense majority. The proletariat, the
lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise
itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official
society being sprung into the air.
Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the
proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle.
The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all
settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.
 The Communist Manifesto |