| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: de-lis were embroidered on the lapels of the back skirts. The
gilt buttons also bore fleurs-de-lis; on the shoulders a pair of
straps cried out for useless epaulettes; these military
appendages were there like a petition without a recommendation.
This old gentleman's coat was of dark blue cloth, and the
buttonhole had blossomed into many colored ribbons. He, no doubt,
always carried his hat in his hand--a three cornered cocked hat,
with a gold cord--for the snowy wings of his powdered hair showed
not a trace of its pressure. He might have been taken for not
more than fifty years of age, and seemed to enjoy robust health.
While wearing the frank and loyal expression of the old emigres,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: a bowl of punch to make merry at her wedding."
Mrs. Hill began instantly to express her joy. Elizabeth received
her congratulations amongst the rest, and then, sick of this folly,
took refuge in her own room, that she might think with freedom.
Poor Lydia's situation must, at best, be bad enough; but that it
was no worse, she had need to be thankful. She felt it so; and
though, in looking forward, neither rational happiness nor
worldly prosperity could be justly expected for her sister, in
looking back to what they had feared, only two hours ago, she
felt all the advantages of what they had gained.
Chapter 50
Pride and Prejudice |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: of the great ice barrier, rising perpendicularly to a height of
two hundred feet like the rocky cliffs of Quebec, and marking
the end of southward navigation. In the afternoon we entered McMurdo
Sound and stood off the coast in the lee of smoking Mt. Erebus.
The scoriac peak towered up some twelve thousand, seven hundred
feet against the eastern sky, like a Japanese print of the sacred
Fujiyama, while beyond it rose the white, ghostlike height of
Mt. Terror, ten thousand, nine hundred feet in altitude, and now
extinct as a volcano.
Puffs of smoke from Erebus came intermittently,
and one of the graduate assistants - a brilliant young fellow
At the Mountains of Madness |
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 The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: existence, in economic relations, could be of any advantage to
them. By changes in the material conditions of existence, this
form of Socialism, however, by no means understands abolition of
the bourgeois relations of production, an abolition that can be
effected only by a revolution, but administrative reforms, based
on the continued existence of these relations; reforms,
therefore, that in no respect affect the
relations between capital and labour, but, at the best, lessen
the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois
government.
Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression, when, and only
The Communist Manifesto |
