| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: day you will take them out yourself for a long march, and lead them
across country over every kind of ground. Again, whilst practising the
evolutions of the rival cavalry display,[29] it will be well to gallop
out at one time to one district and again to another. Both men and
horses will be benefited.
[29] Lit. "the anthippasia." See iii. 11, and "Horsemanship," viii.
10.
Next, as to hurling the javelin from horseback, the best way to secure
as wide a practice of the art as possible, it strikes me, would be to
issue an order to your phylarchs that it will be their duty to put
themselves at the head of the marksmen of several tribes, and to ride
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: head, as if to say, "Pray, do not touch me!" and roguishly, as it
appeared, leading him through the deepest of the snow. Once, the
good man stumbled, and floundered down upon his face, so that,
gathering himself up again, with the snow sticking to his rough
pilot-cloth sack, he looked as white and wintry as a snow-image
of the largest size. Some of the neighbors, meanwhile, seeing him
from their windows, wondered what could possess poor Mr. Lindsey
to be running about his garden in pursuit of a snow-drift, which
the west-wind was driving hither and thither! At length, after a
vast deal of trouble, he chased the little stranger into a
corner, where she could not possibly escape him. His wife had
The Snow Image |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
Prufrock/Other Observations |
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 Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: form. The fact is I was born to be an example of misfortune, and the
target and mark at which the arrows of adversity are aimed and
directed. Observe too, Sancho, that these traitors were not content
with changing and transforming my Dulcinea, but they transformed and
changed her into a shape as mean and ill-favoured as that of the
village girl yonder; and at the same time they robbed her of that
which is such a peculiar property of ladies of distinction, that is to
say, the sweet fragrance that comes of being always among perfumes and
flowers. For I must tell thee, Sancho, that when I approached to put
Dulcinea upon her hackney (as thou sayest it was, though to me it
appeared a she-ass), she gave me a whiff of raw garlic that made my
Don Quixote |
