| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: comfort you, in your fall you have found immortal fame.'
'On, on!' growled the soldiers, and I went, little thinking how
Guatemoc and I should meet again.
They took me to a canoe, and we were paddled across the lake by
Tlascalans, till at length we came to the Spanish camp. All the
journey through, my guards, though they laid no hand on me, fearing
the anger of Cortes, mocked and taunted me, asking me how I liked
the ways of the heathen, and whether I ate the flesh of the
sacrifices raw or cooked; and many another such brutal jest they
made at my expense. For a while I bore it, for I had learned to be
patient from the Indians, but at last I answered them in few words
Montezuma's Daughter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: this recklessness and irresponsibility is even remotely related to the
miseries of the proletariat. Poor Malthus is there relegated to the
humble level of a footnote. ``If the reader reminds me of Malthus,
whose essay on Population appeared in 1798,'' Marx remarks somewhat
tartly, ``I remind him that this work in its first form is nothing
more than a schoolboyish, superficial plagiary of De Foe, Sir James
Steuart, Townsend, Franklin, Wallace, etc., and does not contain a
single sentence thought out by himself. The great sensation this
pamphlet caused was due solely to party interest. The French
Revolution had passionate defenders in the United Kingdom.... `The
Principles of Population' was quoted with jubilance by the English
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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 Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: just as in literature we compose a type by collecting the
peculiarities of several similar characters. How many a time a woman
has been heard to say in her own salon after close and intimate
conversations:--
"Such a one is my ideal as to soul, and I love the other who is only a
dream of the senses."
The last letter written by Modeste, which here follows, gives us a
glimpse of the enchanted isle to which the meanderings of this
correspondence had led the two lovers.
To Monsieur de Canalis,--Be at Havre next Sunday; go to church;
after the morning service, walk once or twice round the nave, and
Modeste Mignon |
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 Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: Jemima Puddle-duck.
She tried to hide her eggs; but they
were always found and carried off.
Jemima Puddle-duck became quite
desperate. She determined to make a
nest right away from the farm.
She set off on a fine spring
afternoon along the cart road that
leads over the hill.
She was wearing a shawl and a
poke bonnet.
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