| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To break an oath, to win a paradise?
IV.
Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook
With young Adonis, lovely, fresh, and green,
Did court the lad with many a lovely look,
Such looks as none could look but beauty's queen,
She told him stories to delight his ear;
She show'd him favours to allure his eye;
To win his heart, she touch'd him here and there, --
Touches so soft still conquer chastity.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: awoke from his apathy, talked, and showed that he had seen and heard
everything. This peaceful Diogenes, quite incapable of explaining his
tenets, half a Turk, half a Venetian, was thick-set, short, and fat;
he had a Doge's sharp nose, an inquisitive, satirical eye, and a
discreet though smiling mouth.
When he died, it became known that he had lived in a little den near
San Benedetto. He had two million francs invested in the funds of
various countries of Europe, and had left the interest untouched ever
since he had first bought the securities in 1814, so the sum was now
enormous, alike from the increased value of the capital and the
accumulated interest. All this money was left to the pastry-cook's
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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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James: of his enquiry been referred to the Bishop, and the Bishop had been
delightfully human, the Bishop had been almost amused. Success was
within sight, at any rate from the moment the attitude of those
whom it concerned became liberal in response to liberality. The
altar and the sacred shell that half encircled it, consecrated to
an ostensible and customary worship, were to be splendidly
maintained; all that Stransom reserved to himself was the number of
his lights and the free enjoyment of his intention. When the
intention had taken complete effect the enjoyment became even
greater than he had ventured to hope. He liked to think of this
effect when far from it, liked to convince himself of it yet again
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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: production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication,
draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation.
The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with
which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the
barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to
capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to
adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to
introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to
become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world
after its own image.
The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the
The Communist Manifesto |
