| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon: to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and
take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing
return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a
leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and
March 399 B.C.
PREPARER'S NOTE
This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a
four-volume set. The complete list of Xenophon's works (though
there is doubt about some of these) is:
Work Number of books
The Anabasis 7
Anabasis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: found that the neighbouring noble's steward had taken a fancy to his
windmill and his farm upon the Dnieper. He was thrown into prison
on a frivolous charge, and escaped to the Tatars, leaving his wife
dishonoured, his house burnt, his infant lost in the flames, his
eldest son scourged for protesting against the wrong. And he
returned, at the head of an army of Tatars, Socinians, Greeks, or
what not, to set free the serfs, and exterminate Jesuits, Jews, and
nobles, throughout Podolia, Volhynia, Red Russia; to desecrate the
altars of God, and slay his servants; to destroy the nobles by
lingering tortures; to strip noble ladies and maidens, and hunt them
to death with the whips of his Cossacks; and after defeating the
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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 Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: children, was doubtless a man of stern principles, and an army
officer as well, therefore a man with a doubly sensitive code of
honour and a social position to maintain; and this man, morbidly
sensitive probably, had a daughter who had inherited his
sensitiveness and his high ideals of honour, a daughter married to
a rich husband. But he had another child, a son without any sense
of honour at all, who, although also an officer, failed to live in
a manner worthy his position. This son was now in Marburg, where
there were no expensive pleasures, no all-night cafes and gambling
dens, for a man to lose his time in, his money, and his honour also.
For such must have been the case with Colonel Leining's son before
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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 Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: and said there was something powerful strange about it.
Another and another day went by; then there was a report got
around that praps he was murdered. You bet it made a big
stir! Everybody's tongue was clacking away after that.
Saturday two or three gangs turned out and hunted the
woods to see if they could run across his remainders.
Me and Tom helped, and it was noble good times and exciting.
Tom he was so brimful of it he couldn't eat nor rest.
He said if we could find that corpse we would be celebrated,
and more talked about than if we got drownded.
The others got tired and give it up; but not Tom
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