| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: clerk was found to have amassed thousands of dollars, and
kept them secretly in a rival establishment, the stoutest of
his friends abandoned him, the books were overhauled for
traces of ancient and artful fraud, and though none were
found, there still prevailed a general impression of loss.
The telegraph was set in motion; and the correspondent of the
bank in Edinburgh, for which place it was understood that
John had armed himself with extensive credits, was warned to
communicate with the police.
Now this correspondent was a friend of Mr. Nicholson's; he
was well acquainted with the tale of John's calamitous
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: III
Coming to the critical period at which a boy ceases to be a boy and
becomes a youth,[1] we find that it is just then that the rest of the
world proceed to emancipate their children from the private tutor and
the schoolmaster, and, without substituting any further ruler, are
content to launch them into absolute independence.
[1] {eis to meirakiousthai}, "with reference to hobbledehoy-hood."
Cobet erases the phrase as post-Xenophontine.
Here, again, Lycurgus took an entirely opposite view of the matter.
This, if observation might be trusted, was the season when the tide of
animal spirits flows fast, and the froth of insolence rises to the
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