| 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: make them hardy through going barefoot.[8] This habit, if practised,
would, as he believed, enable them to scale heights more easily and
clamber down precipices with less danger. In fact, with his feet so
trained the young Spartan would leap and spring and run faster unshod
than another shod in the ordinary way.
[8] Cf. Plut. "Lycurg." 16 (Clough, i. 106).
Instead of making them effeminate with a variety of clothes, his rule
was to habituate them to a single garment the whole year through,
thinking that so they would be better prepared to withstand the
variations of heat and cold.
Again, as regards food, according to his regulation the Eiren,[9] or
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: little farther, albeit with an aimlessness about his questions
that almost frightened him. He asked himself whether he loved
Bill, now that he was dead, and he had to admit that he did not.
The boy had always been something other than he had expected --a
disappointment. Did he love anyone? No. Not a person; not even
any longer that lovely Rose of Sharon who had flowered in his
dust for a brief hour. His wife? God Almighty, no. Then who?
Himself? No, his very selfishness had other springs than that. He
was one of those men, not so uncommon either, he surmised, who
loved no one on the whole wide earth.
When he re-entered the house, he found his wife still seated in
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