| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: begun. Oscar could lay his hand upon his studious heart and await the
Day of Judgment like--I had nearly said a Christian! His notes were
full: Three hundred pages about Zeno and Parmenides and the rest, almost
every word as it had come from the professor's lips. And his memory was
full, too, flowing like a player's lines. With the right cue he could
recite instantly: "An important application of this principle, with
obvious reference to Heracleitos, occurs in Aristotle, who says--" He
could do this with the notes anywhere. I am sure you appreciate Oscar
and his great power of acquiring facts. So he was ready, like the wise
virgins of parable. Bertie and Billy did not put one in mind of virgins:
although they had burned considerable midnight oil, it had not been to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: was the perfection of policy, they felt, so to change the arena of
battle, with Asia as the prize of victory instead of Hellas. If we
pass on to the moment when he had received his army and set sail, I
can conceive no clearer exposition of his generalship than the bare
narration of his exploits.
The scene is Asia, and this his first achievement. Tissaphernes had
sworn an oath to Agesilaus on this wise: if Agesilaus would grant him
an armistice until the return of certain ambassadors whom he would
send to the king, he (Tissaphernes) would do his utmost to procure the
independence of the Hellenic cities in Asia. And Agesilaus took a
counter oath: without fraud or covin to observe the armistice during
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