| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: house; for the viscount's letter had been delayed, and he might
descend upon his shoulders that very night.
After reading this missive could there be a question of the demands of
Prebaudet? The keeper and the gardener, witnesses to Mademoiselle
Cormon's excitement, stood aside and awaited her orders. But when, as
she was about to leave the room, they stopped her to ask for
instructions, for the first time in her life the despotic old maid,
who saw to everything at Prebaudet with her own eyes, said, to their
stupefaction, "Do what you like." This from a mistress who carried her
administration to the point of counting her fruits, and marking them
so as to order their consumption according to the number and condition
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: she said. I was not long in accomplishing the job, when the dear lady
put into my hand TWO SILVER HALF-DOLLARS. To understand the emotion
which swelled my heart as I clasped this money, realizing that I had no
master who could take it from me,--THAT IT WAS MINE--THAT MY HANDS WERE MY OWN,
and could earn more of the precious coin,--one must have been in some sense
himself a slave. My next job was stowing a sloop at Uncle Gid. Howland's
wharf with a cargo of oil for New York. I was not only a freeman,
but a free working-man, and no "master" stood ready at the end of the week
to seize my hard earnings.
The season was growing late and work was plenty. Ships were being
fitted out for whaling, and much wood was used in storing them.
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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 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: than half of the population, it was natural that writers who
sided with the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, should use,
in their criticism of the bourgeois regime, the standard of the
peasant and petty bourgeois, and from the standpoint of these
intermediate classes should take up the cudgels for the working
class. Thus arose petty-bourgeois Socialism. Sismondi was the
head of this school, not only in France but also in England.
This school of Socialism dissected with great acuteness the
contradictions in the conditions of modern production. It laid
bare the hypocritical apologies of economists. It proved,
incontrovertibly, the disastrous effects of machinery and
The Communist Manifesto |
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 Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: He rose on eastern islands
For Grecian girls and men;
The twilight is as clear a blue,
The star as shaken and as bright,
And the same thought he gave to them
He gives to me to-night.
Moonlight
It will not hurt me when I am old,
A running tide where moonlight burned
Will not sting me like silver snakes;
The years will make me sad and cold,
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