| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: gator that newspapers never use a code, anyhow -- that
is, a cipher code. Of course the Associated Press stuff
is a sort of code -- an abbreviation, rather -- but --
The m. e. knew all that, and said so. He asked each man
how long he had worked on the paper. Not one of them
had drawn pay from an Enterprise envelope for longer than
six years. Calloway had been on the paper twelve years.
"Try old Heffelbauer," said the m. e. "He was here
when Park Row was a potato patch."
Heffelbauer was an institution. He was half janitor,
half handy-man about the office, and half watchman --
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: looming black against the lighter hill.
My heart beat fast, but it was no time for thought. Bidding the
man in a whisper to follow me and be ready to back me up, I
climbed the bank softly, and, with a pistol in my hand, felt my
way to the rear of the stack, thinking to find a hut there, set
against the fern, and M. Cocheforet in it. But I found no hut.
There was none; and, moreover, it was so dark now we were off the
road, that it came upon me suddenly, as I stood between the hill
and the stack, that I had undertaken a very difficult thing. The
hut behind the fern stack. But how far behind? how far from it?
The dark slope stretched above us, infinite, immeasurable
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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 Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: at any time a prey to an enemy whose feet were as much in need of
being /socked/ as its throat of being moistened.
Phileas displayed under these unfortunate circumstances an activity
nearly equal to that of the Emperor. This general of hosiery made a
commercial campaign of 1814 with splendid but ignored courage. A
league or two behind where the army advanced he bought up caps and
socks as the Emperor gathered immortal palms by his very reverses. The
genius was equal on both sides, though exercised in different spheres;
one aimed at covering heads, the other at mowing them down. Obliged to
create some means of transportation in order to save his tons of
hosiery, which he stored in a suburb of Paris, Phileas often put in
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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 Republic by Plato: on both points.' I meant to have escaped the trouble of proving the first,
but as you have detected the little stratagem I must even submit. Only
allow me to feed my fancy like the solitary in his walks, with a dream of
what might be, and then I will return to the question of what can be.
In the first place our rulers will enforce the laws and make new ones where
they are wanted, and their allies or ministers will obey. You, as
legislator, have already selected the men; and now you shall select the
women. After the selection has been made, they will dwell in common houses
and have their meals in common, and will be brought together by a necessity
more certain than that of mathematics. But they cannot be allowed to live
in licentiousness; that is an unholy thing, which the rulers are determined
The Republic |
