| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: Kerfol were induced to say--with apparent sincerity--that during
the year or two preceding his death their master had once more
grown uncertain and irascible, and subject to the fits of
brooding silence which his household had learned to dread before
his second marriage. This seemed to show that things had not
been going well at Kerfol; though no one could be found to say
that there had been any signs of open disagreement between
husband and wife.
Anne de Cornault, when questioned as to her reason for going down
at night to open the door to Herve de Lanrivain, made an answer
which must have sent a smile around the court. She said it was
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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 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: both public and private.
The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish
countries and nationality.
The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what
they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all
acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of
the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far,
itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.
National differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily
more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the
bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world-market, to
The Communist Manifesto |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: to speak, and he stood in mid assembly; and the herald
Peisenor, skilled in sage counsels, placed the staff in his
hands. Then he spake, accosting the old man first:
'Old man, he is not far off, and soon shalt thou know it
for thyself, he who called the folk together, even I: for
sorrow hath come to me in chief. Neither have I heard any
tidings of the host now returning, which I may plainly
declare to you, for that I first learned thereof; neither
do I show forth or tell any other matter of the common
weal, but mine own need, for that evil hath befallen my
house, a double woe. First, I have lost my noble sire, who
The Odyssey |
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 Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: disposition! I don't believe you'd stab anybody in the back
now!"
(Which was a joke, of course; I never stabbed anybody in the
back.)
He sauntered over and dropped a quarter into the slot-machine by
the door, but the thing was frozen up and refused to work. I've
seen the time when Mr. Sam would have kicked it, but he merely
looked at it and then at me.
"Turned virtuous, like everything else around the place. Not
that I don't approve of virtue, Minnie, but I haven't got used to
putting my foot on the brass rail of the bar and ordering a nut
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