| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: with citizens." See Jebb, "Theophr. Char." xiv. 4, note, p. 221.
See Demosth. "against Midias," 529, where the law is cited. "If
any one commit a personal outrage upon man, woman, or child,
whether free-born or slave, or commit any illegal act against any
such person, let any Athenian that chooses" (not being under
disability) "indict him before the judges," etc; and the orator
exclaims: "You know, O Athenians, the humanity of the law, which
allows not even slaves to be insulted in their persons."--C. R.
Kennedy.
Citizens devoting their time to gymnastics and to the cultivation of
music are not to be found in Athens;[27] the sovereign People has
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: Look on those spears--they are but a fourth part of the number I can
muster: that is my answer. Look now on yonder mountain, the mountain
of ghosts and wolves--unknown, impassable, save to me and one other:
that is my answer. Spears and mountains shall come together--the
mountain shall be alive with spears and with the fangs of beasts. Let
Dingaan seek his tribute there! I have spoken!"
Now I laughed shrilly, desiring to try the heart of Umslopogaas, my
fosterling, yet further.
"Fool!" I said. "Boy with the brain of a monkey, for every spear you
have Dingaan, whom I serve, can send a hundred, and your mountain
shall be stamped flat; and for your ghosts and wolves, see, with the
Nada the Lily |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: Thus for the second time, Thomas Jefferson advises a friendship with
Great Britain. He realizes as fully as did Bonaparte the power of her
navy, and its value to us. It is striking and strange to find Thomas
Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, writing in
1823 about uniting our affections and about fighting once more side by
side with England.
It was the revolt of the Spanish Colonies from Spain in South America,
and Canning's fear that France might obtain dominion in America, which
led him to make his suggestion to Rush. The gist of the suggestion was,
that we should join with Great Britain in saying that both countries were
opposed to any intervention by Europe in the western hemisphere. Over our
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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 The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: was already an historic document, though not, of course,
as venerable as certain other old family houses in
University Place and lower Fifth Avenue. Those were of
the purest 1830, with a grim harmony of cabbage-
rose-garlanded carpets, rosewood consoles, round-arched
fire-places with black marble mantels, and immense
glazed book-cases of mahogany; whereas old Mrs.
Mingott, who had built her house later, had bodily cast
out the massive furniture of her prime, and mingled
with the Mingott heirlooms the frivolous upholstery of
the Second Empire. It was her habit to sit in a window
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