| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: reared and kept by the wealthiest members of the state; but whenever
the ban was called out, an appointed trooper appeared who took the
horse with any sort of arms which might be presented to him, and set
off on the expedition at a moment's notice. Moreover, these troopers
were the least able-bodied of the men: raw recruits set simply astride
their horses, and devoid of soldierly ambition. Such was the cavalry
of either antagonist.
[8] Or, "surrounded them."
[9] See Rustow and Kochly, op. cit. p. 173.
[10] See "Hipparch." ix. 4; also "Cyrop." VIII. viii.
The heavy infantry of the Lacedaemonians, it is said, advanced by
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: of Jean Hauser. As soon as the snow begins to fall, and fills the
valley so as to make the road down to Loeche impassable, the
father, with mother, daughter, and the three sons depart, leaving
the house in charge of the old guide, Gaspard Hari, with the
young guide, Ulrich Kunsi, and Sam, the great mountain dog.
The two men and the dog remain till spring in their snowy prison,
with nothing before their eyes except immense, white slopes of
the Balmhorn, surrounded by light, glistening summits, and shut
up, blocked up, and buried by the snow which rises around them,
enveloping and almost burying the little house up to the eaves.
It was the day on which the Hauser family were going to return to
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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: suspected heretic, at last seemingly a notorious one; for only the
year before his death, going to visit patients at Perpignan, he was
waylaid by the Spaniards, and had to get home through bypasses of
the Pyrenees, to avoid being thrown into the Inquisition.
And those were times in which it was necessary for a man to be
careful, unless he had made up his mind to be burned. For more than
thirty years of Rondelet's life the burning had gone on in his
neighbourhood; intermittently it is true: the spasms of
superstitious fury being succeeded, one may charitably hope, by pity
and remorse; but still the burnings had gone on. The Benedictine
monk of St. Maur, who writes the history of Languedoc, says, quite
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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 Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum: it was only meant to protect them from any dangers upon the ground
beneath their feet, and not from dangers that appeared in the air
above them.
"Wow!" said the Cowardly Lion, with a shudder. "It makes me
dreadfully nervous to see that big hammer pounding so near my head.
One blow would crush me into a door-mat."
"The ir-on gi-ant is a fine fel-low," said Tiktok, "and works as
stead-i-ly as a clock. He was made for the Nome King by Smith &
Tin-ker, who made me, and his du-ty is to keep folks from find-ing the
un-der-ground pal-ace. Is he not a great work of art?"
"Can he think, and speak, as you do?" asked Ozma, regarding the giant
Ozma of Oz |
