| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: country bordered on a field, everywhere on a plain, which left it open
to the invader from every side. Had there been here, suggests Gogol in
his introduction to his never-written history of Little Russia, if
upon one side only, a real frontier of mountain or sea, the people who
settled here might have formed a definite political body. Without this
natural protection it became a land subject to constant attack and
despoliation. "There where three hostile nations came in contact it
was manured with bones, wetted with blood. A single Tatar invasion
destroyed the whole labour of the soil-tiller; the meadows and the
cornfields were trodden down by horses or destroyed by flame, the
lightly-built habitations reduced to the ground, the inhabitants
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: Sale: "It can only mean long sticks used as stretchers or
spreaders to hold up the net between and beyond the props." Cf.
Thuc. vii. 36, 2.
[18] Or, "within the bay of network."
[19] {sunekhontai en tois psilois ai e}. "Denn diese werden an
unbestandenen Orten durch die Leine niedergezogen," Lenz;
{sunelkontai} conj. Schn.; {sunerkhontai} al., "concurrunt," vid.
Sturz.
[20] {ta dusorma}, met. from "bad harbourage." Cf. Arsch. "Pers." 448;
"Ag." 194. Cf. Lat. "importunus," also of "rough ground."
[21] Or, "make his rush."
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