| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: a breadth, a grasp, at which I never ceased to wonder.
But the babies and little children never felt the pressure of that
"forcible feeding" of the mind that we call "education." Of this, more later.
CHAPTER 9
Our Relations and Theirs
What I'm trying to show here is that with these women the
whole relationship of life counted in a glad, eager growing-up to
join the ranks of workers in the line best loved; a deep, tender
reverence for one's own mother--too deep for them to speak
of freely--and beyond that, the whole, free, wide range of
sisterhood, the splendid service of the country, and friendships.
Herland |
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: The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all
settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.
In depicting the most general phases of the development of the
proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging
within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks
out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the
bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.
Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have
already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed
classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions
must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its
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 Juana by Honore de Balzac: placed their husbands where their ambition or their vanity prompted.
But Juana, whose childhood was passed in her retreat in Tarragona,
knew nothing of the vices, the meannesses, or the resources of
Parisian society; she looked at that society with the curiosity of a
girl, but she learned from it only that which her sorrow and her
wounded pride revealed to her.
Juana had the tact of a virgin heart which receives impressions in
advance of the event, after the manner of what are called
"sensitives." The solitary young girl, so suddenly become a woman and
a wife, saw plainly that were she to attempt to compel society to
respect her husband, it must be after the manner of Spanish beggars,
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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 Pericles by William Shakespeare: FIRST LORD.
They are, my liege;
And stay your coming to present themselves.
SIMONIDES.
Return them, we are ready; and our daughter,
In honour of whose birth these triumphs are,
Sits here, like beauty's child, whom nature gat
For men to see, and seeing wonder at.
[Exit a Lord.]
THALIARD.
It pleaseth you1 my royal father, to express
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