| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: have preferred to leave the matter vague. Cf. Cicero, "De Offic."
i. 24; Plutarch, "Lac. Apophth." p. 832.
After consultation the Athenian generals agreed that two captains of
triremes, Theramenes and Thrasybulus, accompanied by some of the
taxiarchs, should take forty-seven ships and sail to the assistance of
the disabled fleet and of the men on board, whilst the rest of the
squadron proceeded to attack the enemy's blockading squadron under
Eteonicus at Mitylene. In spite of their desire to carry out this
resolution, the wind and a violent storm which arose prevented them.
So they set up a trophy, and took up their quarters for the night. As
to Etenoicus, the details of the engagement ware faithfully reported
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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 Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: faintly pleasing pink and brown tints, enclosed within a circular
scroll of gilt laurel-leaves. The young man who was her grandfather
looked vaguely over her head. The sensual lips were slightly parted,
and gave the face an expression of beholding something lovely or
miraculous vanishing or just rising upon the rim of the distance. The
expression repeated itself curiously upon Katharine's face as she
gazed up into his. They were the same age, or very nearly so. She
wondered what he was looking for; were there waves beating upon a
shore for him, too, she wondered, and heroes riding through the
leaf-hung forests? For perhaps the first time in her life she thought
of him as a man, young, unhappy, tempestuous, full of desires and
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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 Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: extraordinary degree. All great points in fact, were settled
rather by sober appeals to reason than by intrigue or lobbying;
and one cannot help thinking that an Athenian of the time of
Perikles would have regarded with pitying contempt the trick of
the "previous question." And this explains the undoubted
pre-eminence of Athenian oratory. This accounts for the fact that
we find in the forensic annals of a single city, and within the
compass of a single century, such names as Lysias, Isokrates,
Andokides, Hypereides, Aischines, and Demosthenes. The art of
oratory, like the art of sculpture, shone forth more brilliantly
then than ever since, because then the conditions favouring its
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
