| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: words, but . . . well, it was years ago, and 'tisn't as vivid now
as it was when they were fresh. That sort of words doesn't keep,
in the kind of climate we have out here. Professor Marsh said
those skeletons were fossils. So that makes me part blue grass and
part fossil; if there is any older or better stock, you will have
to look for it among the Four Hundred, I reckon. I am satisfied
with it. And am a happy horse, too, though born out of wedlock.
And now we are back at Fort Paxton once more, after a forty-day
scout, away up as far as the Big Horn. Everything quiet. Crows
and Blackfeet squabbling - as usual - but no outbreaks, and
settlers feeling fairly easy.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: Old Bidpai looked at him and stroked his long white beard. "It
is," said he, "about--
The Talisman of Solomon
There was once upon a time a man whom other men called Aben
Hassen the Wise. He had read a thousand books of magic, and knew
all that the ancients or moderns had to tell of the hidden arts.
The King of the Demons of the Earth, a great and hideous monster,
named Zadok, was his servant, and came and went as Aben Hassen
the Wise ordered, and did as he bade. After Aben Hassen learned
all that it was possible for man to know, he said to himself,
"Now I will take my ease and enjoy my life." So he called 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 Bucolics by Virgil: My great Apollo- the whole breadth of heaven
Opens no wider than three ells to view."
MENALCAS
"Say in what country grow such flowers as bear
The names of kings upon their petals writ,
And you shall have fair Phyllis for your own."
PALAEMON
Not mine betwixt such rivals to decide:
You well deserve the heifer, so does he,
With all who either fear the sweets of love,
Or taste its bitterness. Now, boys, shut off
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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 Alcibiades I by Plato: of the Hippias than against it.
The Menexenus or Funeral Oration is cited by Aristotle, and is interesting
as supplying an example of the manner in which the orators praised 'the
Athenians among the Athenians,' falsifying persons and dates, and casting a
veil over the gloomier events of Athenian history. It exhibits an
acquaintance with the funeral oration of Thucydides, and was, perhaps,
intended to rival that great work. If genuine, the proper place of the
Menexenus would be at the end of the Phaedrus. The satirical opening and
the concluding words bear a great resemblance to the earlier dialogues; the
oration itself is professedly a mimetic work, like the speeches in the
Phaedrus, and cannot therefore be tested by a comparison of the other
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