| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: breach by which he might enter. One night he threw himself into the
gulf and swam for three hours at a stretch. He reached the foot of the
Mappalian quarter and tried to climb up the face of the cliff. He
covered his knees with blood, broke his nails, and then fell back into
the waves and returned.
His impotence exasperated him. He was jealous of this Carthage which
contained Salammbo, as if of some one who had possessed her. His
nervelessness left him to be replaced by a mad and continual eagerness
for action. With flaming cheek, angry eyes, and hoarse voice, he would
walk with rapid strides through the camp; or seated on the shore he
would scour his great sword with sand. He shot arrows at the passing
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: have the boy at our house--or maybe the girl."
The conflict between the cake of Virginia leaf and Patrick's virtue
must have been severe during the last ten days of our expedition;
for we went down the Riviere des Ecorces, and that is a tough trip,
and full of occasions when consolation is needed. After a long,
hard day's work cutting out an abandoned portage through the woods,
or tramping miles over the incredibly shaggy hills to some outlying
pond for a caribou, and lugging the saddle and hind quarters back to
the camp, the evening pipe, after supper, seemed to comfort the men
unspeakably. If their tempers had grown a little short under stress
of fatigue and hunger, now they became cheerful and good-natured
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.
By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of
production, free trade, free selling and buying.
But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying
disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and
all the other "brave words" of our bourgeoisie about freedom in
general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted
selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages,
but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of
buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production,
and of the bourgeoisie itself.
The Communist Manifesto |
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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: ex-horse-dealer. Behind these came the gayest and most plebeian
equipage of all, a party of journeymen carpenters returning
from their work in a four-horse wagon. Their only fit compeers
were an Italian opera-troupe, who were chatting and
gesticulating on the piazza of the great hotel, and planning,
amid jest and laughter, their future campaigns. Their work
seemed like play, while the play around them seemed like work.
Indeed, most people on the Avenue seemed to be happy in inverse
ratio to their income list.
As our youths and maidens passed the hotel, a group of French
naval officers strolled forth, some of whom had a good deal of
|
