| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: VI. THE GENESIS OF 'THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE'
VII. PREFACE TO 'THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE'
CHAPTER I - ON SOME TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN LITERATURE
(1)
THERE is nothing more disenchanting to man than to be shown
the springs and mechanism of any art. All our arts and
occupations lie wholly on the surface; it is on the surface
that we perceive their beauty, fitness, and significance; and
to pry below is to be appalled by their emptiness and shocked
by the coarseness of the strings and pulleys. In a similar
way, psychology itself, when pushed to any nicety, discovers
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: lady because no badge was on her, and we two went back to our own
place again, ruffled and insulted--my lady white and silent, and I
aquiver with rage. So furious was I, I could have quarrelled with
her if I could have found one shade of accusation in her eyes.
"All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down
our rock cell, and outside was the darkling sea and a light to the
southward that flared and passed and came again.
"'We must get out of this place,' I said over and over. 'I
have made my choice, and I will have no hand in these troubles. I
will have nothing of this war. We have taken our lives out of all
these things. This is no refuge for us. Let us go.'
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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 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: to the front the common interests of entire proletariat,
independently of nationality. (2) In the various stages of
development which the struggle of the working class against the
bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere
represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically,
the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class
parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all
others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the
great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly
understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate
The Communist Manifesto |
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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: obvious than woodchucks and their burrows. Man and his affairs,
church and state and school, trade and commerce, and manufactures
and agriculture even politics, the most alarming of them all--I
am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape.
Politics is but a narrow field, and that still narrower highway
yonder leads to it. I sometimes direct the traveler thither. If
you would go to the political world, follow the great
road--follow that market-man, keep his dust in your eyes, and it
will lead you straight to it; for it, too, has its place merely,
and does not occupy all space. I pass from it as from a bean
field into the forest, and it is forgotten. In one half-hour I
Walking |
