| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: forces of Lacedaemon alone,[27] he took the field, and thus belied the
current opinion that it would be a long while before the
Lacedaemonians ventured to leave their own territory again. Having
ravaged the country of those who had done his friends to death, he was
content, and returned home.
[26] Or intimates.
[27] B.C. 370. See "Hell."VI. v. 21.
After this Lacedaemon was invaded by the united Arcadians, Argives,
Eleians, and Boeotians, who were assisted by the Phocians, both
sections of the Locrians, the Thessalians, Aenianians, Acarnanians,
and Euboeans; moreover, the slaves had revolted and several of the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: our reach. I have not waited for your wish or urging to attempt an
assault on the mystery."
"Mystery! then there is a mystery?"
"Yes," answered Porbus. "Frenhofer was the only pupil Mabuse was
willing to teach. He became the friend, saviour, father of that
unhappy man, and he sacrificed the greater part of his wealth to
satisfy the mad passions of his master. In return, Mabuse bequeathed
to him the secret of relief, the power of giving life to form,--that
flower of nature, our perpetual despair, which Mabuse had seized so
well that once, having sold and drunk the value of a flowered damask
which he should have worn at the entrance of Charles V., he made his
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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 Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: coincide with the radical change in his whole philosophy of life.
In 1852, tired of life in the Caucasus and remembering his old
home at Yásnaya Polyána, he wrote to his aunt,
Tatyána Alexándrovna:
After some years, I shall find myself, neither very young nor very
old, back at Yásnaya Polyána again: my affairs will
all be in order; I shall have no anxieties for the future and
no troubles in the present.
You also will be living at Yásnaya. You will be
getting a little old, but you will be healthy and vigorous. We
shall lead the life we led in the old days; I shall work in the
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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 Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: Suppose, as the earthquake shock ran on, making the earth under
the sea heave and fall in long earth-waves, the sea-bottom sank
down. Then the water on it would sink down too, and leave the
shore dry; till the sea-bottom rose again, and hurled the water up
again against the land. This is one way of explaining it, and it
may be true. For certain it is, that earthquakes do move the
bottom of the sea; and certain, too, that they move the water of
the sea also, and with tremendous force. For ships at sea during
an earthquake feel such a blow from it (though it does them no
harm) that the sailors often rush upon deck fancying that they
have struck upon a rock; and the force which could give a ship,
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