| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: road," to rival the Touchards, to magnify his own line, to carry
passengers who would compliment him on the conveniences due to the
progress of coach-building, instead of having to listen to perpetual
complaints of his "sabots" (tires of enormous width),--such was
Pierrotin's laudable ambition; but, carried away with the desire to
outstrip his comrade on the line, hoping that the latter might some
day retire and leave to him alone the transportation to Isle-Adam, he
had gone too far. The coach was indeed ordered from Barry, Breilmann,
and Company, coach-builders, who had just substituted square English
springs for those called "swan-necks," and other old-fashioned French
contrivances. But these hard and distrustful manufacturers would only
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: that can be shewn Marianne. MY gratitude will be insured
immediately by any information tending to that end, and HERS
must be gained by it in time. Pray, pray let me hear it."
"You shall; and, to be brief, when I quitted Barton
last October,--but this will give you no idea--I must go
farther back. You will find me a very awkward narrator,
Miss Dashwood; I hardly know where to begin. A short
account of myself, I believe, will be necessary, and it
SHALL be a short one. On such a subject," sighing heavily,
"can I have little temptation to be diffuse."
He stopt a moment for recollection, and then,
Sense and Sensibility |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: "No."
"Well, it means that the Greeks never proposed a good bit of business
to the Trojans without getting their fair share of it. In the olden
time they used to say, 'Take my horse.' Now we say, 'Take my bear.'
Well, what do you want, Ulysses-Lagingeole-Elie Magus?"
These words will give an idea of the mildness and wit with which
Fougeres employed what painters call studio fun.
"Well, I don't deny that you are to paint me two pictures for
nothing."
"Oh! oh!"
"I'll leave you to do it, or not; I don't ask it. But you're an honest
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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: own calling as the bombastic representative of the petty-
bourgeois Philistine.
It proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and the
German petty Philistine to be the typical man. To every
villainous meanness of this model man it gave a hidden, higher,
Socialistic interpretation, the exact contrary of its real
character. It went to the extreme length of directly opposing
the "brutally destructive" tendency of Communism, and of
proclaiming its supreme and impartial contempt of all class
struggles. With very few exceptions, all the so-called Socialist
and Communist publications that now (1847) circulate in Germany
The Communist Manifesto |
