| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: the siege of the Bastille. He was recognized by some of the
assailants, who asked him whether he could not lead a real attack,
since he was used to leading such enterprises on the boards. My father
was brave; he accepted the post, led the insurgents, and was rewarded
by the nomination to the rank of captain in the army of Sambre-et-
Meuse, where he distinguished himself so far as to rise rapidly to be
a colonel. But at Lutzen he was so badly wounded that, after a year's
sufferings, he died in Paris.--The Bourbons returned; my mother could
obtain no pension, and we fell into such abject misery that we were
compelled to work for our living. For some time past she has been
ailing, poor dear, and I have never known her so little resigned; she
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: hard to speak with elegance. And they are extremely similar, so
that a person who has a tincture of one or two may risk, not
without hope, an attempt upon the others.
And again, not only is Polynesian easy to smatter, but interpreters
abound. Missionaries, traders, and broken white folk living on the
bounty of the natives, are to be found in almost every isle and
hamlet; and even where these are unserviceable, the natives
themselves have often scraped up a little English, and in the
French zone (though far less commonly) a little French-English, or
an efficient pidgin, what is called to the westward 'Beach-la-Mar,'
comes easy to the Polynesian; it is now taught, besides, in the
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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 A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: get the money for the purchase," said the inn-keeper to Pere Leger,
whom he had just taken to the stables to see a horse he wanted to sell
to him. "It will be queer if you manage to fleece a peer of France and
a minister of State like the Comte de Serizy."
The person thus alluded to showed no sign upon his face as he turned
to look at the farmer.
"I've done for him," replied Pere Leger, in a low voice.
"Good! I like to see those nobles fooled. If you should want twenty
thousand francs or so, I'll lend them to you-- But Francois, the
conductor of Touchard's six o'clock coach, told me that Monsieur
Margueron was invited by the Comte de Serizy to dine with him to-day
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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: Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas,
views and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, changes
with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in
his social relations and in his social life?
What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual
production changes its character in proportion as material
production
is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the
ideas of
its ruling class.
When people speak of ideas that revolutionise society, they do
The Communist Manifesto |
