| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: continents, the waves should rise and fall, and ebb and flow
unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned
dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that we call lives and souls,
lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like slumberers in their beds;
the ever-rolling waves but made so by their restlessness.
To any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once beheld,
must ever after be the sea of his adoption. It rolls the midmost
waters of the world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic being but its
arms. The same waves wash the moles of the new-built Californian
towns, but yesterday planted by the recentest race of men, and lave
the faded but still gorgeous skirts of Asiatic lands, older than
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: solicitors, and agents of various kinds, represent or misrepresent
Justice. The "lawyer" and the bailiff's men (commonly called "the
brokers") are the two lowest rungs of the ladder. Now, the bailiff's
man is an outsider, an adventitious minister of justice, appearing to
see that judgment is executed; he is, in fact, a kind of inferior
executioner employed by the county court. But the word "lawyer" (homme
de loi) is a depreciatory term applied to the legal profession.
Consuming professional jealousy finds similar disparaging epithets for
fellow-travelers in every walk of life, and every calling has its
special insult. The scorn flung into the words /homme de loi, homme de
lettres/, is wanting in the plural form, which may be used without
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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 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: since his wife's death, perhaps for her. He was not "in love" of
course; it was one of those unclassified affections of which there are
so many. Oh, but nonsense, she thought; William must marry Lily. They
have so many things in common. Lily is so fond of flowers. She must
arrange for them to take a long walk together.
Foolishly, she had set them opposite each other. That could be remedied
tomorrow. If it were fine, they should go for a picnic. Everything
seemed possible. Everything seemed right. Just now (but this cannot
last, she thought, dissociating herself from the moment while they were
all talking about boots) just now she had reached security; she hovered
like a hawk suspended; like a flag floated in an element of joy which
To the Lighthouse |
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: Modern industry has established the world-market, for which the
discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an
immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication
by land. This development has, in its time, reacted on the
extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce,
navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the
bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the
background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.
We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the
product of a long course of development, of a series of
revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.
The Communist Manifesto |
