| 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: "National" owed a large portion of its following under Louis Philippe to
this covert imperialism, that, later under the republic, could stand up
against it as a deadly competitor in the person of Louis Bonaparte. The
fought the aristocracy of finance just the same as did the rest of the
bourgeois opposition. The polemic against the budget, which in France,
was closely connected with the opposition to the aristocracy of finance,
furnished too cheap a popularity and too rich a material for Puritanical
leading articles, not to be exploited. The industrial bourgeoisie was
thankful to it for its servile defense of the French tariff system,
which, however, the paper had taken up , more out of patriotic than
economic reasons the whole bourgeois class was thankful to it for its
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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 Jungle by Upton Sinclair: terrified start! He had been snoring again, of course! And now
what? He fixed his eyes ahead of him, with painful intensity,
staring at the platform as if nothing else ever had interested
him, or ever could interest him, all his life. He imagined the
angry exclamations, the hostile glances; he imagined the
policeman striding toward him--reaching for his neck. Or was he
to have one more chance? Were they going to let him alone this
time? He sat trembling; waiting--
And then suddenly came a voice in his ear, a woman's voice,gentle
and sweet, "If you would try to listen, comrade, perhaps you
would be interested."
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: identified perception and knowledge. And therefore let us draw nearer, as
the advocate of Protagoras desires; and give the truth of the universal
flux a ring: is the theory sound or not? at any rate, no small war is
raging about it, and there are combination not a few.
THEODORUS: No small, war, indeed, for in Ionia the sect makes rapid
strides; the disciples of Heracleitus are most energetic upholders of the
doctrine.
SOCRATES: Then we are the more bound, my dear Theodorus, to examine the
question from the foundation as it is set forth by themselves.
THEODORUS: Certainly we are. About these speculations of Heracleitus,
which, as you say, are as old as Homer, or even older still, the Ephesians
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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 Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: "I have studied some of these signatures so much that I know
them as well as the bank cashier knows the autograph of his
oldest customer. While I turn my back now, I beg that several
persons will be so good as to pass their fingers through their hair,
and then press them upon one of the panes of the window
near the jury, and that among them the accused may set THEIR
finger marks. Also, I beg that these experimenters, or others,
will set their fingers upon another pane, and add again the marks
of the accused, but not placing them in the same order or
relation to the other signatures as before--for, by one chance in
a million, a person might happen upon the right marks by pure guesswork,
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