| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: abstracted intellectual conscience, was demanding what he
thought he was doing with Miss Grammont and whither he
thought he was taking her, how he proposed to reconcile the
close relationship with her that he was now embarked upon
with, in the first place, his work upon and engagements with
the Fuel Commission, and, in the second place, Martin Leeds.
Curiously enough Lady Hardy didn't come into the case at all.
He had done his utmost to keep Martin Leeds out of his head
throughout the development of this affair. Now in an unruly
and determined way that was extremely characteristic of her
she seemed resolute to break in.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: all your sacrifices and eat your burnt-offerings and your flesh
yourselves; for concerning these things I have commanded you
nothing, but this thing commanded I you: Obey My voice (that is,
not what seems right and good to you, but what I bid you), and
walk in the way that I have commanded you." And Deuteronomy xii:
"Thou shalt not do whatsoever is right in thine own eyes, but
what thy God has commanded thee."
These and numberless like passages of Scripture are spoken to
tear man not only from sins, but also from the works which seem
to men to be good and right, and to turn men, with a single mind,
to the simple meaning of God's commandment only, that they shall
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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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: and its vine-clad hills and valleys a hushed music as of
Crusaders departing for the Holy Land. I floated along under the
spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to an heroic
age, and breathed an atmosphere of chivalry.
Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I
worked my way up the river in the light of today, and saw the
steamboats wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed on the
fresh ruins of Nauvoo, beheld the Indians moving west across the
stream, and, as before I had looked up the Moselle, now looked up
the Ohio and the Missouri and heard the legends of Dubuque and of
Wenona's Cliff--still thinking more of the future than of the
Walking |
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 Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: [9] Or, "established a custom to suit the case."
These and many other adaptations of a like sort the lawgiver
sanctioned. As, for instance, at Sparta a wife will not object to bear
the burden of a double establishment,[10] or a husband to adopt sons
as foster-brothers of his own children, with a full share in his
family and position, but possessing no claim to his wealth and
property.
[10] Cf. Plut. "Comp. of Numa with Lycurgus," 4; "Cato mi." 25
(Clough, i. 163; iv. 395).
So opposed to those of the rest of the world are the principles which
Lycurgus devissed in reference to the production of children. Whether
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