| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: William (Maltman in ||
Glasgow). +--------------+
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+-------------+--------------+ III. ROBERT (Maltman
ROBERT, MARION, ELIZABETH. in Glasgow), married
Margaret Fulton (had
NOTE. - Between 1730-1766 flourished a large family).
in Glasgow Alan the Coppersmith, who ||
acts as a kind of a pin to the whole ||
Stevenson system there. He was caution IV. ALAN, West India
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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 $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: my sex.
Then why is it that I love him? MERELY BECAUSE HE IS MASCULINE,
I think.
At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love
him without it. If he should beat me and abuse me, I should go
on loving him. I know it. It is a matter of sex, I think.
He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him
and am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities.
He he were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should
love him; and I would work for him, and slave over him, and pray
for him, and watch by his bedside until I died.
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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 Euthyphro by Plato: the argument, as you will perceive, comes round to the same point. Were we
not saying that the holy or pious was not the same with that which is loved
of the gods? Have you forgotten?
EUTHYPHRO: I quite remember.
SOCRATES: And are you not saying that what is loved of the gods is holy;
and is not this the same as what is dear to them--do you see?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: Then either we were wrong in our former assertion; or, if we
were right then, we are wrong now.
EUTHYPHRO: One of the two must be true.
SOCRATES: Then we must begin again and ask, What is piety? That is an
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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: of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,
guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed,
stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time
ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at
large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a
complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a
manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have
patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages,
The Communist Manifesto |
