The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: by us.
And now I come to the most startling moment of my life. No sooner
was he dead than he was flung overboard. He died in a night of
wind, drawing his last breath as the men tumbled into their
oilskins to the cry of "All hands!" And he was flung overboard,
several hours later, on a day of wind. Not even a canvas wrapping
graced his mortal remains; nor was he deemed worthy of bars of
iron at his feet. We sewed him up in the blankets in which he
died and laid him on a hatch-cover for'ard of the main-hatch on
the port side. A gunnysack, half full of galley coal, was
fastened to his feet.
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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 Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: any rate he is happy to let his dogs go. The same applies to the use
of horses. Some one has fallen sick perhaps, or is in want of a
carriage,[5] or is anxious to reach some point or other quickly--in
any case he has a right, if he sees a horse anywhere, to take and use
it, and restores it safe and sound when he has done with it.
[4] See Aristot. "Pol." ii. 5 (Jowett, i. pp. xxxi. and 34; ii. p.
53); Plat. "Laws," viii. 845 A; Newman, "Pol. Aristot." ii. 249
foll.
[5] "Has not a carriage of his own."
And here is another institution attributed to Lycurgus which scarcely
coincides with the customs elsewhere in vogue. A hunting party returns
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