| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: prostitutes,
take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other's wives.
Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common and
thus,
at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached
with,
is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a
hypocritically
concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest,
it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of
production must bring with it the abolition of the community
The Communist Manifesto |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: the foundry was in operation night and day. I have often worked two nights
and every working day of the week. My foreman, Mr. Cobb, was a good man,
and more than once protected me from abuse that one or more of the hands
was disposed to throw upon me. While in this situation I had little time
for mental improvement. Hard work, night and day, over a furnace hot
enough to keep the metal running like water, was more favorable
to action than thought; yet here I often nailed a newspaper to the post
near my bellows, and read while I was performing the up and down motion
of the heavy beam by which the bellows was inflated and discharged.
It was the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and I look back to it now,
after so many years, with some complacency and a little wonder that I could
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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 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: during the first half-hour of this visit.
Diane d'Uxelles cautiously avoided, as she would the wearing of a
yellow gown, all mention of d'Arthez. The marquise circled round and
round that topic like a Bedouin round a caravan. Diane amused herself;
the marquise fumed. Diane waited; she intended to utilize her friend
and use her in the chase. Of these two women, both so celebrated in
the social world, one was far stronger than the other. The princess
rose by a head above the marquise, and the marquise was inwardly
conscious of that superiority. In this, perhaps, lay the secret of
their intimacy. The weaker of the two crouched low in her false
attachment, watching for the hour, long awaited by feeble beings, of
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: "He amuses me."
"Amusement," said Mrs. Plinth sententiously, "is hardly what I
look for in my choice of books."
"Oh, certainly, 'The Wings of Death' is not amusing," ventured
Mrs. Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like
that of an obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to
submit if his first selection does not suit.
"Was it MEANT to be?" enquired Mrs. Plinth, who was fond of
asking questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer.
"Assuredly not."
"Assuredly not--that is what I was going to say," assented Mrs.
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