| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: The very vineyards, cried aloud for you.
TITYRUS
What could I do? how else from bonds be freed,
Or otherwhere find gods so nigh to aid?
There, Meliboeus, I saw that youth to whom
Yearly for twice six days my altars smoke.
There instant answer gave he to my suit,
"Feed, as before, your kine, boys, rear your bulls."
MELIBOEUS
So in old age, you happy man, your fields
Will still be yours, and ample for your need!
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: sufficiently large numbers to arrest the progress of the Tar-
tar columns. Since therefore it was impossible for Irkutsk
to escape attack, the most important thing to be done was to
put the town in a state to sustain a siege of some duration.
The preparations were begun on the day Tomsk fell into
the hands of the Tartars. At the same time with this last
news, the Grand Duke heard that the Emir of Bokhara
and the allied Khans were directing the invasion in person,
but what he did not know was, that the lieutenant of these
barbarous chiefs was Ivan Ogareff, a Russian officer whom
he had himself reduced to the ranks, but with whose person
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