| 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: years before having to move once more, to settle
in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.
The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia
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
Anabasis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: they can commend.
FIRST LORD.
They cannot be too sweet for the king's tartness. Here's his
lordship now.
[Enter BERTRAM.]
How now, my lord, is't not after midnight?
BERTRAM.
I have to-night despatch'd sixteen businesses, a month's length
apiece; by an abstract of success: I have conge'd with the duke,
done my adieu with his nearest; buried a wife, mourned for her;
writ to my lady mother I am returning; entertained my convoy; and
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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 Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: for the fantastic resemblances with which Nature on the one hand,
and international relations on the other, have associated them.
There was England, marching like some stately dame towards the east,
trailing her ample skirts and coroneted with the cluster of her
little islets; Sweden and Norway, with their bristling spine
of mountains, seemed like a splendid lion eager to spring down from
the bosom of the ice-bound north; Russia, a gigantic polar bear,
stood with its head towards Asia, its left paw resting upon Turkey,
its right upon Mount Caucasus; Austria resembled a huge cat curled
up and sleeping a watchful sleep; Spain, with Portugal as a pennant,
like an unfurled banner, floated from the extremity of the continent;
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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 Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: in the woods, but that he did not know. Now again
her eyes dilated and her pretty mouth rounded!
She gave a little cry and slammed the door in his
face, and he heard excited voices. Then he saw two
pale, pretty faces, the faces of the two girls who had
come upon him in the wood, peering at him around
a corner of the lace in the bay-window, and he under-
stood what it meant -- that he was an object of ter-
ror to them. Directly he experienced such a sense
of mortal insult as he had never known, not even
when the law had taken hold of him. He held his
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