| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: their original possessions; not that you are the authors of these
misfortunes of theirs, although you may perhaps be accessories to them. A
great piece of work is always being made, as I see and am told, now as of
old; about our statesmen. When the State treats any of them as
malefactors, I observe that there is a great uproar and indignation at the
supposed wrong which is done to them; 'after all their many services to the
State, that they should unjustly perish,'--so the tale runs. But the cry
is all a lie; for no statesman ever could be unjustly put to death by the
city of which he is the head. The case of the professed statesman is, I
believe, very much like that of the professed sophist; for the sophists,
although they are wise men, are nevertheless guilty of a strange piece of
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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 Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: field; no one questioned that; for he was no coward.
The next was the news of Culloden, which was brought to Durrisdeer
by one of the tenants' sons - the only survivor, he declared, of
all those that had gone singing up the hill. By an unfortunate
chance John Paul and Macconochie had that very morning found the
guinea piece - which was the root of all the evil - sticking in a
holly bush; they had been "up the gait," as the servants say at
Durrisdeer, to the change-house; and if they had little left of the
guinea, they had less of their wits. What must John Paul do but
burst into the hall where the family sat at dinner, and cry the
news to them that "Tam Macmorland was but new lichtit at the door,
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: first did our race give promise of being the conquering and
civilising race of the future world. And to the conquests of Cyrus-
-so strangely are all great times and great movements of the human
family linked to each other--to his conquests, humanly speaking, is
owing the fact that you are here, and I am speaking to you at this
moment.
It is an oft-told story: but so grand a one that I must sketch it
for you, however clumsily, once more.
In that mountain province called Farsistan, north-east of what we
now call Persia, the dwelling-place of the Persians, there dwelt, in
the sixth and seventh centuries before Christ, a hardy tribe, of 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 A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: most determined gallantry. Better provided with musketry than
their enemies, stationary also, and therefore taking the more
decisive aim, the fire of Argyle's followers was more destructive
than that which they sustained. The royal clans, perceiving
this, rushed to close quarters, and succeeded on two points in
throwing their enemies into disorder. With regular troops this
must have achieved a victory; but here Highlanders were opposed
to Highlanders, and the nature of the weapons, as well as the
agility of those who wielded them, was equal on both sides.
Their strife was accordingly desperate; and the clash of the
swords and axes, as they encountered each other, or rung upon the
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