| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White: and separated them essentially from other men in other occupations.
Blue and brown and black and gray these eyes were, but all steady
and clear with the steadiness and clarity that comes to those whose
daily work compels them under penalty to pay close and undeviating
attention to their surroundings. This is true of sailors, hunters,
plainsmen, cowboys, and tugboat captains. It was especially true of
the old-fashioned river-driver, for a misstep, a miscalculation, a
moment's forgetfulness of the sullen forces shifting and changing
about him could mean for him maiming or destruction. So, finally,
to one of an imaginative bent, these eyes, like the "cork boots,"
grew to seem part of the uniform, one of the marks of their caste,
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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 Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: house?" persisted Muller.
"Because I lost my false beard one day upon the staircase, and I
feared the old woman might have seen my face enough to recognise me
again. I thought it better to look for another place."
"And then you found this house."
"Yes, but several days later."
"And you hired it in the name of Miss Asta Langen? Who would then
have been found dead here several days after you had entered the
house?"
"Several days, several weeks perhaps. I preferred to wait until
the woman who rented the house had read in the papers that Asta
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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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: In Italy it has not become, as it has in France, the decisive
factor. The war on the Carso front in Italy--I say nothing of
the mountain warfare, which is a thing in itself--is in fact
still in the stage that I have called B. It is good warfare well
waged, but not such an intensity of warfare. It has not, as one
says of pianos and voices, the same compass.
This is true in spite of the fact that the Italians along of all
the western powers have adopted a type of aeroplane larger and
much more powerful than anything except the big Russian machines.
They are not at all suitable for any present purpose upon the
Italian front, but at a later stage, when the German is retiring
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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: cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except
by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and
thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They
have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission
is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of,
individual property.
All previous historical movements were movements of minorities,
or in the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is
the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority,
in the interests of the immense majority. The proletariat, the
lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise
The Communist Manifesto |
