| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee-simple, (not in part,)
What with his heart in youth, and youth in art,
Threw my affections in his charmed power,
Reserv'd the stalk, and gave him all my flower.
'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;
Finding myself in honour so forbid,
With safest distance I mine honour shielded:
Experience for me many bulwarks builded
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil
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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: intoxicating effects of self-deception, this form of Socialism
ended in a miserable fit of the blues.
C. German, or "True," Socialism
The Socialist and Communist literature of France, a literature
that originated under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and
that was the expression of the struggle against this power, was
introduced into Germany at a time when the bourgeoisie, in that
country, had just begun its contest with feudal absolutism.
German philosophers, would-be philosophers, and beaux esprits,
eagerly seized on this literature, only forgetting, that when
these writings immigrated from France into Germany, French social
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 Pupil by Henry James: masterly retreat. "How is he? where is he?" he asked of Mrs.
Moreen; but before she could speak these questions were answered by
the pressure round hid neck of a pair of arms, in shrunken sleeves,
which still were perfectly capable of an effusive young foreign
squeeze.
"Dreadfully ill - I don't see it!" the young man cried. And then
to Morgan: "Why on earth didn't you relieve me? Why didn't you
answer my letter?"
Mrs. Moreen declared that when she wrote he was very bad, and
Pemberton learned at the same time from the boy that he had
answered every letter he had received. This led to the clear
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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 Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: your perusal. And so I wish that your winter fire may burn clear
and bright while you read these pages; and that the summer days may
be fair, and the fish may rise merrily to your fly, whenever you
follow one of these little rivers.
1895.
A LEAF OF SPEARMINT
RECOLLECTIONS OF A BOY AND A ROD.
"It puzzles me now, that I remember all these young impressions so,
because I took no heed of them at the time whatever; and yet they
come upon me bright, when nothing else is evident in the gray fog
of experience."--B. D. BLACKMORE: Lorna Doone.
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