| 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: [4] Reading {epikataskeuazumenois}, or, if {episkeuazomenoi}, transl.
"at the rehabilitation of old works."
[5] Cf. "Oecon." xvii. 12.
[6] "The thousand and one embellishments of civil life."
[7] "When a state is struck down with barrenness," etc. See "Mem." II.
vii.
And if it be asserted that gold is after all just as useful as silver,
without gainsaying the proposition I may note this fact[8] about gold,
that, with a sudden influx of this metal, it is the gold itself which
is depreciated whilst causing at the same time a rise in the value of
silver.
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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 Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: piece of wall paper of a noticeable and distinctly ugly pattern.
The paper had a dark blue ground with clumsy lines of gold on it.
In the pocket he found also a tramway ticket, which had been crushed
and then carefully smoothed out again. After looking at these
papers, Muller replaced them in the cover of the notebook. The book
itself was strongly perfumed with the same odour which had exhaled
from the handkerchief.
The detective did not begin his reading in that part of the book
which followed the mysterious title, as the commissioner had done.
He began instead at the very first words.
"Ah! she is still young," he murmured, when he had read the first
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