| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: occupied the lower terraces. The multitude obstructed the streets. It
reached to the house-tops, and extended in long files to the summit of
the Acropolis. Having thus the people at her feet, the firmament above
her head, and around her the immensity of the sea, the gulf, the
mountains, and the distant provinces, Salammbo in her splendour was
blended with Tanith, and seemed the very genius of Carthage, and its
embodied soul.
The feast was to last all night, and lamps with several branches were
planted like trees on the painted woollen cloths which covered the low
tables. Large electrum flagons, blue glass amphoras, tortoise-shell
spoons, and small round loaves were crowded between the double row of
 Salammbo |
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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: be interesting to trace the changes that have happened to all
these arms.
Before this war began speculative writers had argued that
infantry drill in close formation had now no fighting value
whatever, that it was no doubt extremely necessary for the
handling, packing, forwarding and distribution of men, but that
the ideal infantry fighter was now a highly individualised and
self-reliant man put into a pit with a machine gun, and supported
by a string of other men bringing him up supplies and ready to
assist him in any forward rush that might be necessary.
The opening phases of the war seemed to contradict this. It did
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