| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: [5] See "Cyr." III. iii. 58, and for the word {deisidaimon}, see Jebb,
"Theophr. Char." p. 263 foll.; Mr. Ruskin, Preface to "Bibl.
Past." vol. i. p. xxv.
[6] See Herod. i. 34; Soph. "Oed. Tyr." 1529; and Prof. Jebb's note ad
loc.
In his judgment it was a greater misfortune to neglect things good and
virtuous, knowing them to be so, than in ignorance. Nor was he
enamoured of any reputation, the essentials of which he had not
laboriously achieved.[7]
[7] Or, "for which he did not qualify himself by the appropriate
labour."
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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 Coxon Fund by Henry James: Gravener was profound enough to remark after a moment that in the
first place he couldn't be anything but a Dissenter, and when I
answered that the very note of his fascination was his
extraordinary speculative breadth my friend retorted that there was
no cad like your cultivated cad, and that I might depend upon
discovering--since I had had the levity not already to have
enquired--that my shining light proceeded, a generation back, from
a Methodist cheesemonger. I confess I was struck with his
insistence, and I said, after reflexion: "It may be--I admit it
may be; but why on earth are you so sure?"--asking the question
mainly to lay him the trap of saying that it was because the poor
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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 Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: the dainty grace with which she had danced for him, heard again
that low voice breaking into a merry piping lilt, warmed once
more to the living, elusive smile, at once so tender and mocking.
He might set his will to preserve an even front to her gay charm,
but it was beyond him to control the thrills that shot his
pulses.
CHAPTER 8. FIRST BLOOD!
Occasionally Alice Mackenzie met Collins on the streets of
Tucson. Once she saw him at the hotel where she was staying, deep
in a discussion with her father of ways and means of running down
the robbers of the Limited. He did not, however, make the least
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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 The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: hangings of the castle walls. When his young ear strove to listen and
to distinguish sounds, he heard the monotonous ebb and flow of the sea
upon the rocks, as regular as the swinging of a pendulum. Thus places,
sounds, and things, all that strikes the senses and forms the
character, inclined him to melancholy. His mother, too, was doomed to
live and die in the clouds of melancholy; and to him, from his birth
up, she was the only being that existed on the earth, and filled for
him the desert. Like all frail children, Etienne's attitude was
passive, and in that he resembled his mother. The delicacy of his
organs was such that a sudden noise, or the presence of a boisterous
person gave him a sort of fever. He was like those little insects for
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