| 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: cling to the memory more lastingly.
[1] Or, as others think, "in a summary."
Agesilaus reverenced the shrines and sacred places even of the enemy.
We ought, he said, to make the gods our allies on hostile no less than
on friendly soil.
He would do no violence to a suppliant, no, not even if he were his
own foe; since how irrational must it be to stigmatise robbers of
temples as sacrilegious and yet to regard him who tears the suppliant
from the altar as a pious person.
One tenet he never wearied of repeating: the gods, he said, are not
less pleased with holy deeds than with pure victims.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: promise of delicate sentiment. It seemed pitiful to see so good a
model left to country admirers and a country way of thought.
Beauty should at least have touched society; then, in a moment, it
throws off a weight that lay upon it, it becomes conscious of
itself, it puts on an elegance, learns a gait and a carriage of the
head, and, in a moment, PATET DEA. Before I left I assured
Clarisse of my hearty admiration. She took it like milk, without
embarrassment or wonder, merely looking at me steadily with her
great eyes; and I own the result upon myself was some confusion.
If Clarisse could read English, I should not dare to add that her
figure was unworthy of her face. Hers was a case for stays; but
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