| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: a cow should speak in England, or a YAHOO in HOUYHNHNMLAND. The
honest Portuguese were equally amazed at my strange dress, and
the odd manner of delivering my words, which, however, they
understood very well. They spoke to me with great humanity, and
said, "they were sure the captain would carry me GRATIS to
Lisbon, whence I might return to my own country; that two of the
seamen would go back to the ship, inform the captain of what they
had seen, and receive his orders; in the mean time, unless I
would give my solemn oath not to fly, they would secure me by
force. I thought it best to comply with their proposal. They
were very curious to know my story, but I gave them very little
Gulliver's Travels |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: general conditions under which alone modern society can be saved and the
class struggle avoided. Likewise must we avoid running away with the
notion that the Democratic Representatives are all "shopkeepers," or
enthuse for these. They may--by education and individual standing--be
as distant from them as heaven is from earth. That which makes them
representatives of the small traders' class is that they do not
intellectually leap the bounds which that class itself does not leap in
practical life; that, consequently, they are theoretically driven to the
same problems and solutions, to which material interests and social
standing practically drive the latter. Such, in fact, is at all times
the relation of the "political" and the "literary" representatives of a
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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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: 'Why are there so few palaces and gentlemen's seats,' he would ask, with
some emotion, as he walked across the room, 'throughout so many delicious
provinces in France? Whence is it that the few remaining Chateaus amongst
them are so dismantled,--so unfurnished, and in so ruinous and desolate a
condition?--Because, Sir' (he would say) 'in that kingdom no man has any
country-interest to support;--the little interest of any kind which any man
has any where in it, is concentrated in the court, and the looks of the
Grand Monarch: by the sunshine of whose countenance, or the clouds which
pass across it, every French man lives or dies.'
Another political reason which prompted my father so strongly to guard
against the least evil accident in my mother's lying-in in the country,--
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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 Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: me that a family of some such name as yours in
Blackmoor Vale came originally from these parts, and
that 'twere a old ancient race that had all but
perished off the earth--though the new generations
didn't know it. But, Lord, I took no notice of the old
woman's ramblings, not I."
"Oh no--it is nothing," said Tess.
Then the talk was of business only.
"You can milk 'em clean, my maidy? I don't want my cow
going azew at this time o' year."
She reassured him on that point, and he surveyed her up
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
