| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: bulwarks. Forbearing to engage in the open field, where the gain would
lie wholly with the enemy, he lay stoutly embattled on ground where
the citizens must reap advantage; since, as he doggedly persisted, to
march out meant to be surrounded on every side; whereas to stand at
bay where every defile gave a coign of vantage, would give him mastery
complete.[29]
[28] Lit. "perioecid"; see Plut. "Ages." xxxii. (Clough, iv. 39);
"Hell." VI. v. 32.
[29] Is this parallel to "Hell." VII. v. 10, or "Hell." VI. v. 28?
According to the historian, Agesilaus adopted similar tactics on
both occasions (in B.C. 369 and B.C. 362 alike). The encomiast
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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 Glasses by Henry James: her lovely face, damn it, with the monstrous gear she had begun to
rig upon it, was just what had let him in. He had in the judgment
of his family done everything that could be expected of him; he had
made--Mrs. Meldrum had herself seen the letter--a "handsome" offer
of pecuniary compensation. Oh if Flora, with her incredible
buoyancy, was in a manner on her feet again now it was not that she
had not for weeks and weeks been prone in the dust. Strange were
the humiliations, the forms of anguish, it was given some natures
to survive. That Flora had survived was perhaps after all a proof
she was reserved for some final mercy. "But she has been in the
abysses at any rate," said Mrs. Meldrum, "and I really don't think
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