| 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: diacritical marks have been lost.
AGESILAUS
An Encomium
The date of Agesilaus's death is uncertain--360 B.C. (Grote,
"H. G." ix. 336); 358 B.C. (Curt. iv. 196, Eng. tr.)
I
To write the praises of Agesilaus in language equalling his virtue and
renown is, I know, no easy task; yet must it be essayed; since it were
but an ill requital of pre-eminence, that, on the ground of his
perfection, a good man should forfeit the tribute even of imperfect
praise.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: speak, a psychological and literary curiosity. He wanted to know the
height that woman had attained, and what were the injuries she thus
forgave; he longed to know how these women of the world, taxed with
frivolity, cold-heartedness, and egotism, could be such angels.
Remembering how the princess had already repulsed him when he first
tried to read that celestial heart, his voice, and he himself,
trembled as he took the transparent, slender hand of the beautiful
Diane with its curving finger-tips, and said,--
"Are we now such friends that you will tell me what you have
suffered?"
"Yes," she said, breathing forth the syllable like the most
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mountains by Stewart Edward White: brilliancy both of color and of perfume. You
will ride into and out of strata of perfume as sharply
defined as are the quartz strata on the ridges. They
lie sluggish and cloying in the hollows, too heavy to
rise on the wings of the air.
As for color, you will see all sorts of queer things.
The ordered flower-science of your childhood has
gone mad. You recognize some of your old friends,
but strangely distorted and changed,--even the dear
old "butter 'n eggs" has turned pink! Patches of
purple, of red, of blue, of yellow, of orange are laid
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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 Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: of Tara of Helium rose a shade higher. Ah! if he but knew where
she was there were little to fear then. The hosts of Helium would
batter at the gates of Manator, the great green warriors of John
Carter's savage allies would swarm up from the dead sea bottoms
lusting for pillage and for loot, the stately ships of her
beloved navy would soar above the unprotected towers and minarets
of the doomed city which only capitulation and heavy tribute
could then save.
But John Carter did not know! There was only one other to whom
she might hope to look--Turan the panthan; but where was he? She
had seen his sword in play and she knew that it had been wielded
The Chessmen of Mars |
