| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: Representative represents only this or that party, this or that city,
this or that dunghill, or possibly only the necessity of electing some
one Seven-hundred-and-fiftieth or other, with whom neither the issue nor
the man is closely considered, that one, the President, on the contrary,
is the elect of the nation, and the act of his election is the trump
card, that, the sovereign people plays out once every four years. The
elected National Assembly stands in a metaphysical, but the elected
President in a personal, relation to the nation. True enough, the
National Assembly presents in its several Representatives the various
sides of the national spirit, but, in the President, this spirit is
incarnated. As against the National Assembly, the President possesses a
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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 Voice of the City by O. Henry: ply, with conjunctions substituted for adjectives
wherever possible, and whatever evidences of style
may appear in it shall be due to the linotype man.
It is a story of the literary life in a great city, and
it should be of interest to every author within a 20-
mile radius of Gosport, Ind., whose desk holds a MS.
story beginning thus: "While the cheers following
his nomination were still ringing through the old
courthouse, Harwood broke away from the congrat-
ulating handclasps of his henchmen and hurried to
Judge Creswell's house to find Ida."
The Voice of the City |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: Scotussa, and Pharsalus, who were allies of the Boeotians, and indeed
all the Thessalians, with the exception of those who were in exile at
the time, combined to dog his steps and do him damage. For a while he
led his troops in a hollow square, posting one half of his cavalry in
the van and the other half on his rear, but finding his march hindered
by frequent attacks of the Thessalians on his hindmost divisions, he
sent round the mass of his cavalry from the vanguard to support his
rear, reserving only his personal escort.[2] And now in battle order
the rival squadrons faced each other; when the Thessalians, not liking
a cavalry engagement in face of heavy infantry, wheeled and step by
step retreated; their opponents with much demureness following. Then
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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 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Treasure Island |
