| 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: doubling of the king's share was not for the sake of surfeiting, but
that the king might have the wherewithal to honour whom he wished. And
so, too, sleep[2] he treated not as a master, but as a slave,
subservient to higher concerns. The very couch he lay upon must be
sorrier than that of any of his company or he would have blushed for
shame, since in his opinion it was the duty of a leader to excel all
ordinary mortals in hardihood, not in effeminacy. Yet there were
things in which he was not ashamed to take the lion's share, as, for
example, the sun's heat in summer, or winter's cold. Did occasion ever
demaned of his army moil and toil, he laboured beyond all others as a
thing of course, believing that such ensamples are a consolation to
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: For this reason they are called the Old Testament, and are so.
For example, "Thou shalt not covet," is a precept by which we are
all convicted of sin, since no man can help coveting, whatever
efforts to the contrary he may make. In order therefore that he
may fulfil the precept, and not covet, he is constrained to
despair of himself and to seek elsewhere and through another the
help which he cannot find in himself; as it is said, "O Israel,
thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine help" (Hosea
xiii. 9). Now what is done by this one precept is done by all;
for all are equally impossible of fulfilment by us.
Now when a man has through the precepts been taught his own
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: while. She's made me," Anna summed up, "feel as if I'd been
dreadfully thick-skinned and obtuse!"
"YOU?"
"Yes. As if I'd treated her like the bric-a-brac that used
to be sent down here 'on approval,' to see if it would look
well with the other pieces." She added, with a sudden flush
of enthusiasm: "I'm glad she's got it in her to make one
feel like that!"
She seemed to wait for Darrow to agree with her, or to put
some other question, and he finally found voice to ask:
"Then you think it's not a final break?"
|
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 Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: the capable McWilliams.
As it chanced, she did prefer to ride down the pasture and look
over the place from on horseback. She was in love with her ranch
already. Its spacious distances, the thousands of cattle and the
horses, these picturesque retainers who served her even to the
shedding of an enemy's blood; they all struck an answering echo
in her gallant young heart that nothing in Kalamazoo had been
able to stir. She bubbled over with enthusiasm, the while Morgan
covertly sneered and McWilliams warmed to the untamed youth in
her.
"What about this man Bannister?" she flung out suddenly, after
|
