| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: livable. There's plenty of fresh air, anyhow, and everybody's
shouting for fresh air nowadays. They've got somebody to take my
place in the house."
"And father needn't know a thing--you can fix that," broke
in Mrs. Dick. "And after your wedding he will be in a better
humor; he'll know it's over and not up to him any more."
Miss Patty came back to the shelter-house again and sat down on
the soap box.
"We MIGHT carry it off," she said. "If I could only go back
to town! But father is in one of his tantrums, and he won't go,
or let me go. The idea!--with Aunt Honoria on the long-distance
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: events I did not expect the absurd developments he
sprung upon me no later than the break of the very
next day.
I remember only that there was, on that evening,
enough point in his behaviour to make me, after he
had fled, wonder audibly what he might mean. To
this Hermann, crossing his legs with a swing and
settling himself viciously away from me in his chair,
said: "That fellow don't know himself what he
means."
There might have been some insight in such a
Falk |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: of cloth of gold, dressed as Venus in a picture, and beautiful
young boys, like painted Cupids, stood on each side to fan her.
Her maids were dressed like Sea Nymphs and Graces, some steering
at the rudder, some working at the ropes. The perfumes diffused
themselves from the vessel to the shore, which was covered with
multitudes, part following the galley up the river on either
bank, part running out of the city to see the sight. The
market-place was quite emptied, and Antony at last was left
alone sitting upon the tribunal; while the word went through all
the multitude, that Venus was come to feast with Bacchus, for
the common good of Asia. On her arrival, Antony sent to invite
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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 The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and
deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He
becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than
population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the
bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in
society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society
as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is
incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his
slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a
state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him.
Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other
The Communist Manifesto |
