| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: instance), the extortion of Indian agents, the outrages of the
wicked, the ill-faith of all, nay, down to the ridicule of such
poor beings as were here with me upon the train, make up a chapter
of injustice and indignity such as a man must be in some ways base
if his heart will suffer him to pardon or forget. These old, well-
founded, historical hatreds have a savour of nobility for the
independent. That the Jew should not love the Christian, nor the
Irishman love the English, nor the Indian brave tolerate the
thought of the American, is not disgraceful to the nature of man;
rather, indeed, honourable, since it depends on wrongs ancient like
the race, and not personal to him who cherishes the indignation.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: and interest, leads at last directly to material greed?
Nature is a good guide through life, and the love of simple pleasures
next, if not superior, to virtue; and we had on board an Irishman who
based his claim to the widest and most affectionate popularity
precisely upon these two qualities, that he was natural and happy.
He boasted a fresh colour, a tight little figure, unquenchable
gaiety, and indefatigable goodwill. His clothes puzzled the
diagnostic mind, until you heard he had been once a private coachman,
when they became eloquent and seemed a part of his biography. His
face contained the rest, and, I fear, a prophecy of the future; the
hawk's nose above accorded so ill with the pink baby's mouth below.
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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 Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: ran that cyclopean gouge, and deep down within earth's bowels
its lower delvings yawned. It was no quarry of man, and the concave
sides were scarred with great squares, yards wide, which told
of the size of the blocks once hewn by nameless hands and chisels.
High over its jagged rim huge ravens flapped and croaked, and
vague whirrings in the unseen depths told of bats or urhags or
less mentionable presences haunting the endless blackness. There
Carter stood in the narrow way amidst the twilight with the rocky
path sloping down before him; tall onyx cliffs on his right that
led on as far as he could see and tall cliffs on the left chopped
off just ahead to make that terrible and unearthly quarry.
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
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: "Undoubtedly," it will be said, "religious, moral, philosophical
and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of
historical development. But religion, morality philosophy,
political science, and law, constantly survived this change."
"There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice,
etc. that are common to all states of society. But Communism
abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all
morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it
therefore
acts in contradiction to all past historical experience."
What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all
The Communist Manifesto |
