| 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: public service. Think of the number who will serve on land as infantry
[in the public service] and will bear hard upon the enemy. Only we
must treat them with courtesy.[54] For myself, my calculation is, that
even in the event of war we shall be quite able to keep a firm hold of
the silver mines. I may take it, we have in the neighbourhood of the
mines certain fortresses--one on the southern slope in
Anaphlystus;[55] and we have another on the northern side in Thoricus,
the two being about seven and a half miles[56] apart. Suppose then a
third breastwork were to be placed between these, on the highest point
of Besa, that would enable the operatives to collect into one out of
all the fortresses, and at the first perception of a hostile movement
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: thousand magazine covers, have been adjectived in reams of
Sunday-supplement stories. Who will picture Lower Fifth Avenue
between five and six, when New York's unsung beauties pour into
the streets from a thousand loft-buildings? Theirs is no mere
empty pink-and-white prettiness. Poverty can make prettiness
almost poignantly lovely, for it works with a scalpel. Your
Twenty-sixth Street beauty has a certain wistful appeal that
your Forty-sixth Street beauty lacks; her very bravado, too,
which falls just short of boldness, adds a final piquant touch.
In the face of the girl who works, whether she be a
spindle-legged errand-girl or a ten-thousand-a-year foreign
Emma McChesney & Co. |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey: holding weapons aloft. But the pack-ponies labored when the current
struck them, and whirling about, they held back the Indians who were
leading them, and blocked those behind. The orderly procession of the
start became a broken line, and then a rout. Here and there a Navajo
slipped into the water and swam, leading his mustang; others pulled on
pack-ponies and beat their mounts; strong-swimming mustangs forged ahead;
weak ones hung back, and all obeyed the downward will of the current.
While Hare feared for the lives of some of the Navajos, and pitied the
laden ponies, he could not but revel in the scene, in its vivid action
and varying color, in the cries and shrill whoops of the Indians, and the
snorts of the frightened mustangs, in Naab's hoarse yells to his sons,
The Heritage of the Desert |
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 Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: liberty. No doubt, after a time, the idea of
using violence to achieve a political object might die
down, as the practice of duelling has done. But such
changes of habit and outlook are facilitated by legal
prohibition, and would hardly come about without
it. I shall not speak yet of the international aspect
of this same problem, for I propose to deal with that
in the next chapter, but it is clear that the same
considerations apply with even greater force to the
relations between nations.
If we admit, however reluctantly, that a criminal
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