| 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: when the remodeling of English society was accomplished, Locke
supplanted Habakuk.
Accordingly, the reviving of the dead in those revolutions served the
purpose of glorifying the new struggles, not of parodying the old; it
served the purpose of exaggerating to the imagination the given task,
not to recoil before its practical solution; it served the purpose of
rekindling the revolutionary spirit, not to trot out its ghost.
In 1848-51 only the ghost of the old revolution wandered about, from
Marrast the "Relpublicain en gaunts jaunes," [#1 Silk-stocking
republican] who disguised himself in old Bailly, down to the adventurer,
who hid his repulsively trivial features under the iron death mask of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: say, the forest swallowed 'em up. And I never saw or heard of High
Jack Snakefeeder from that day to this. I don't know if the Cherokees
came from the Aspics; but if they did, one of 'em went back.
"All I could do was to hustle back to that Boca place and panhandle
Major Bing. He detached himself from enough of his winnings to buy me
a ticket home. And I'm back again on the job at Chubb's, sir, and I'm
going to hold it steady. Come round, and you'll find the steaks as
good as ever."
I wondered what Hunky Magee thought about his own story; so I asked
him if he had any theories about reincarnation and transmogrification
and such mysteries as he had touched upon.
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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 My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: "imagination frames her enchanted and enchanting visions, and
sometimes passes them upon the senses for reality."
"Yes," said Aunt Margaret, who is a well-read woman, "to those
who resemble the translator of Tasso,--
'Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung.
It is not required for this purpose that you should be sensible
of the painful horrors which an actual belief in such prodigies
inflicts. Such a belief nowadays belongs only to fools and
children. It is not necessary that your ears should tingle and
your complexion change, like that of Theodore at the approach of
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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 St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: 'And therefore mine,' said he.
Again we fell silent; and we may thus have covered half a mile
before the lane, taking a sudden turn, brought us forth again into
the moonshine. With his hooded great-coat on his back, his valise
in his hand, his black wig adjusted, and footing it on the ice with
a sort of sober doggedness of manner, my enemy was changed almost
beyond recognition: changed in everything but a certain dry,
polemical, pedantic air, that spoke of a sedentary occupation and
high stools. I observed, too, that his valise was heavy; and,
putting this and that together, hit upon a plan.
'A seasonable night, sir,' said I. 'What do you say to a bit of
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