| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: ruins of an old stone-wall, among some tangled bushes and briers.
There being no Aunt Eliza to pull through the surf, and no animated
bathers near, I discovered the beauty of the sea, and that I loved
it.
Presently I heard the steps of a horse, and, to my astonishment,
Mr. Uxbridge rode past. I was glad he did not know me. I watched
him as he rode slowly down the road, deep in thought. He let drop
the bridle, and the horse stopped, as if accustomed to the
circumstance, and pawed the ground gently, or yawed his neck for
pastime. Mr. Uxbridge folded his arms and raised his head to look
seaward. It seemed to me as if he were about to address the jury.
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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: proletariat, than that of England was in the seventeenth, and of
France in the eighteenth century, and because the bourgeois
revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately
following proletarian revolution.
In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary
movement against the existing social and political order of
things.
In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading
question in each, the property question, no matter what its
degree of development at the time.
Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of
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 Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: farewell to the village altar. But their minds were made up and their
plans already carried out. When the rector who followed them from
church reached the principal house he found their bags and bundles
ready for the journey. The purchaser of the property was there with
the money. The notary had drawn up the papers. In the yard behind the
house was a carriole ready harnessed to carry away the older couple
with the money, and the mother of Jean-Francois. The remainder of the
family were to go on foot by night.
At the moment when the young abbe entered the low room in which the
family were assembled the rector of Montegnac had exhausted all the
resources of his eloquence. The old pair, now insensible to the
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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 Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: SOCRATES: Then the wisest and those who do best and the most fortunate and
the richest would appear to be all one and the same, if wisdom is really
the most valuable of our possessions?
Yes, said Eryxias, interposing, but what use would it be if a man had the
wisdom of Nestor and wanted the necessaries of life, food and drink and
clothes and the like? Where would be the advantage of wisdom then? Or how
could he be the richest of men who might even have to go begging, because
he had not wherewithal to live?
I thought that what Eryxias was saying had some weight, and I replied,
Would the wise man really suffer in this way, if he were so ill-provided;
whereas if he had the house of Polytion, and the house were full of gold
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