| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves
piece-meal, are a commodity, like every other article of
commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of
competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.
Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of
labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual
character, and consequently, all charm for the workman. He
becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most
simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is
required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is
restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he
The Communist Manifesto |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: emperor said that he would no longer be clept king ne emperor, but
priest, and that he would have the name of the first priest that
went out of the church, and his name was John. And so ever-more
sithens, he is clept Prester John.
In his land be many Christian men of good faith and of good law,
and namely of them of the same country, and have commonly their
priests, that sing the Mass, and make the sacrament of the altar,
of bread, right as the Greeks do; but they say not so many things
at the Mass as men do here. For they say not but only that that
the apostles said, as our Lord taught them, right as Saint Peter
and Saint Thomas and the other apostles sung the Mass, saying the
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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 Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "Yes. She was the granddaughter of a wealthy man in Pittsburg.
My aunt has been in his family for twenty years. Mrs. Curtis wanted
her brother to marry Miss West."
"Do you think he did marry her?" I could not keep the excitement out
of my voice.
"No. There were reasons" - she stopped abruptly.
"Do you know anything of the family? Are they - were they New
Yorkers?"
"They came from somewhere in the south. I have heard Mrs. Curtis
say her mother was a Cuban. I don't know much about them, but Mr.
Sullivan had a wicked temper, though he didn't look it. Folks say
The Man in Lower Ten |
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 Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: the cottonwood, the sheepman reached the tree in safety. He could
dodge through the brush as elusively as any man in Wyoming. It
was a trick he had learned on the whitewashed football gridiron.
For in his buried past this man had been the noted half-back of a
famous college, and one of his specialties had been running the
ball back after a catch through a broken field of opponents. The
lesson that experience had then thumped into him had since saved
his life on more than one occasion.
Having reached the tree, Bannister took immediate advantage of
the lie of the ground to snake forward unobserved for another
hundred feet. There was a dip from the foot of the tree, down
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