| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: Miss Bordereau demanded before I had time to answer this appeal.
"She has a much easier life than I had when I was her age."
"You must remember that it has been quite open to me to think
you rather inhuman."
"Inhuman? That's what the poets used to call the women a hundred years ago.
Don't try that; you won't do as well as they!" Juliana declared.
"There is no more poetry in the world--that I know of at least.
But I won't bandy words with you," she pursued, and I well remember
the old-fashioned, artificial sound she gave to the speech.
"You have made me talk, talk! It isn't good for me at all."
I got up at this and told her I would take no more of her time; but 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 Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: (1) It was anonymously published, but no one seems to have
been in doubt about its authorship; he might as well have set
his name to it, for all the good he got by holding it back.
(2) Knox's Works, iv. 358.
(3) Strype's AYLMER, p. 16.
(4) It may interest the reader to know that these (so says
Thomasius) are the "ipsissima verba Schlusselburgii."
Now, what of the real sentiments of these loyal subjects of
Elizabeth? They professed a holy horror for Knox's position:
let us see if their own would please a modern audience any
better, or was, in substance, greatly different.
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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 Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: 'My daughter' and 'my wife' with clamours fill'd
The dispers'd air, who, holding Lucrece' life,
Answer'd their cries, 'My daughter!' and 'My wife!'
Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece' side,
Seeing such emulation in their woe,
Began to clothe his wit in state and pride,
Burying in Lucrece' wound his folly's show.
He with the Romans was esteemed so
As silly-jeering idiots are with kings,
For sportive words, and uttering foolish things:
But now he throws that shallow habit by,
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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: for the benefit of the working class.
3. CRITICAL-UTOPIAN SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM
We do not here refer to that literature which, in every great
modern revolution, has always given voice to the demands of the
proletariat, such as the writings of Babeuf and others.
The first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own
ends, made in times of universal excitement, when feudal society
was being overthrown, these attempts necessarily failed, owing to
the then undeveloped state of the proletariat, as well as to the
absence of the economic conditions for its emancipation,
conditions that had yet to be produced, and could be produced by
The Communist Manifesto |
