| 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: inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of
extermination between nations, the dissolution of old moral
bonds, of the old family relations, of the old nationalities.
In its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires
either to restoring the old means of production and of exchange,
and with them the old property relations, and the old society, or
to cramping the modern means of production and of exchange,
within the framework of the old property relations that have
been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means. In either
case, it is both reactionary and Utopian.
Its last words are: corporate guilds for manufacture,
The Communist Manifesto |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: ten francs when the lucky moment seemed to come; never playing more
than three times, win or lose. If he won, which usually happened, he
drank a tumbler of punch and went home to his garret; but by that time
he talked of smashing the ultras and the Bourbon body-guard, and
trolled out, as he mounted the staircase, "We watch to save the
Empire!" His poor mother, hearing him, used to think "How gay Philippe
is to-night!" and then she would creep up and kiss him, without
complaining of the fetid odors of the punch, and the brandy, and the
pipes.
"You ought to be satisfied with me, my dear mother," he said, towards
the end of January; "I lead the most regular of lives."
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: be lost in thought. Having found no solution, he said:
"Get out, all of you; it's aching again. Anastasio put
out the candle. Lock him up in the corral and let Pan-
cracio and Manteca watch him. Tomorrow, we'll see.
VI
Through the shadows of the starry night, Luis Cer-
vantes had not yet managed to detect the exact shape of
the objects about him. Seeking the most suitable resting-
place, he laid his weary bones down on a fresh pile of
manure under the blurred mass of a huizache tree. He
lay down, more exhausted than resigned, and closed his
The Underdogs |
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 Coxon Fund by Henry James: would distinctly help them to marry. When I enquired if there were
no other way in which so rich and so affectionate an aunt could
cause the weight of her benevolence to be felt, he answered that
Lady Coxon was affectionate indeed, but was scarcely to be called
rich. She could let her project of the Fund lapse for her niece's
benefit, but she couldn't do anything else. She had been
accustomed to regard her as tremendously provided for, and she was
up to her eyes in promises to anxious Coxons. She was a woman of
an inordinate conscience, and her conscience was now a distress to
her, hovering round her bed in irreconcilable forms of resentful
husbands, portionless nieces and undiscoverable philosophers.
|
