| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: the warnings of the Faculty.
Thanks to her constant care, this son had grown and developed so much,
and so gracefully, that at twenty years of age, he was thought a most
elegant cavalier at Versailles. Madame de Dey possessed a happiness
which does not always crown the efforts and struggles of a mother. Her
son adored her; their souls understood each other with fraternal
sympathy. If they had not been bound by nature's ties, they would
instinctively have felt for each other that friendship of man to man,
which is so rarely to be met in this life. Appointed sub-lieutenant of
dragoons, at the age of eighteen, the young Comte de Dey had obeyed
the point of honor of the period by following the princes of the blood
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: Now the Samians, though besieged by Lysander on all sides, were at
first unwilling to come to terms. But at the last moment, when
Lysander was on the point of assaulting the town, they accepted the
terms, which allowed every free man to leave the island, but not to
carry away any part of his property, except the clothes on his back.
On these conditions they marched out. The city and all it contained
was then delivered over to its ancient citizens by Lysander, who
finally appointed ten governors to garrison the island.[3] After
which, he disbanded the allied fleet, dismissing them to their
respective cities, while he himself, with the Lacedaemonian squadron,
set sail for Laconia, bringing with him the prows of the conquered
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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 Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: feeling in America at the time when Gompers was supreme,
but that time has passed." Still, as I listened to Reinstein, I
wondered in how many other countries besides Russia, a
representative of foreign labour would be thus welcomed.
The reason has probably little to do with the
good-heartedness of the Russians. Owing to the
general unification of wages Mr. Kuni could not
represent the competition of cheap labour. I talked to the
Chinaman afterwards. He is president of the Chinese
Soviet. He told me they had just about a thousand Chinese
workmen in Moscow, and therefore had a right to
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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 Aesop's Fables by Aesop: The Young Thief and His Mother
A young Man had been caught in a daring act of theft and had
been condemned to be executed for it. He expressed his desire to
see his Mother, and to speak with her before he was led to
execution, and of course this was granted. When his Mother came
to him he said: "I want to whisper to you," and when she brought
her ear near him, he nearly bit it off. All the bystanders were
horrified, and asked him what he could mean by such brutal and
inhuman conduct. "It is to punish her," he said. "When I was
young I began with stealing little things, and brought them home
to Mother. Instead of rebuking and punishing me, she laughed and
Aesop's Fables |
