| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: and extended so as to render them much more useful to the state. Only
I would premise that I claim no sort of admiration for anything which
I am about to say, as though I had hit upon some recondite discovery.
Since half of what I have to say is at the present moment still patent
to the eyes of all of us, and as to what belongs to past history, if
we are to believe the testimony of our fathers,[10] things were then
much of a piece with what is going on now. No, what is really
marvellous is that the state, with the fact of so many private persons
growing wealthy at her expense, and under her very eyes, should have
failed to imitate them. It is an old story, trite enough to those of
us who have cared to attend to it, how once on a time Nicias, the son
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: assignment to write up the floral tributes when a prominent
citizen had died.
I--Translate, please; I do not understand your pagan rites and
ceremonies.
HE--I was ordered by the office to describe the flowers, and
wreaths, and so on, that had been sent to a dead man's funeral.
Well, I went to the house. There was no one there to stop me, so
I yanked the tinkler--pulled the bell--and drifted into the room
where the corpse lay all among the roses and smilax. I whipped
out my note-book and pawed around among the floral tributes,
turn-ing up the tickets on the wreaths and seeing who had sent
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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 Aspern Papers by Henry James: It was the beginning of autumn, of the end of the golden months.
With this it was the end of my experiment--or would be in the course
of half an hour, when I should really have learned that the papers
had been reduced to ashes. After that there would be nothing left
for me but to go to the station; for seriously (and as it struck me
in the morning light) I could not linger there to act as guardian
to a piece of middle-aged female helplessness. If she had not saved
the papers wherein should I be indebted to her? I think I winced
a little as I asked myself how much, if she HAD saved them,
I should have to recognize and, as it were, to reward such a courtesy.
Might not that circumstance after all saddle me with a guardianship?
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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 Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: with Belgium, which, by a military compact made among the soldiers,
was to withdraw from the Holy Alliance. Two thrones would have been
plunged in a moment into the vortex of this sudden cyclone. Instead of
this formidable scheme--concerted by strong minds and supported by
personages of high rank--being carried out, one small part of it, and
that only, was discovered and brought before the Court of Peers.
Philippe Bridau consented to screen the leaders, who retired the
moment the plot was discovered (either by treachery or accident), and
from their seats in both Chambers lent their co-operation to the
inquiry only to work for the ultimate success of their purpose at the
heart of the government.
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