| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: The Sunday was a very hot one, and once on the ferry-boat Ann
Eliza revived at the touch of the salt breeze, and the spectacle of
the crowded waters; but when they reached the other shore, and
stepped out on the dirty wharf, she began to ache with anticipated
weariness. They got into a street-car, and were jolted from one
mean street to another, till at length Mr. Ramy pulled the
conductor's sleeve and they got out again; then they stood in the
blazing sun, near the door of a crowded beer-saloon, waiting for
another car to come; and that carried them out to a thinly settled
district, past vacant lots and narrow brick houses standing
in unsupported solitude, till they finally reached an almost rural
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: [2] {misthos}, e.g. of the assembly, the senate, and the dicasts.
[3] The {metoikion}. See Plat. "Laws," 850 B; according to Isaeus, ap.
Harpocr. s.v., it was 12 drachmae per annum for a male and 6
drachmae for a female.
[4] Or, "the class in question." According to Schneider (who cites the
{atimetos metanastes} of Homer, "Il." ix. 648), the reference is
not to disabilities in the technical sense, but to humiliating
duties, such as the {skaphephoria} imposed on the men, or the
{udriaphoria} and {skiadephoria} imposed on their wives and
daughters in attendance on the {kanephoroi} at the Panathenaic and
other festival processions. See Arist. "Eccles." 730 foll.;
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: the glance; and as attorneys and solicitors meet constantly on this
ground, the matter, whatever it is, is arranged. The counterpoise of
this fraternal system is found in what we may call professional
conscience. The public must believe the physician who says, giving
medical testimony, "This body contains arsenic"; nothing is supposed
to exceed the integrity of the legislator, the independence of the
cabinet minister. In like manner, the attorney of Paris says to his
brother lawyer, good-humoredly, "You can't obtain that; my client is
furious," and the other answers, "Very good; I must do without it."
Now, la Peyrade, a shrewd man, had worn his legal gown about the
Palais long enough to know how these judicial morals might be made to
|
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 Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: enough holy anger to receive it with the same expressions; ay, even
with that one which I dare not print; it would not need to have
been blotted away, like Uncle Toby's oath, by the tears of the
recording angel; it would have been counted to you for your
brightest righteousness. But you have deliberately chosen the part
of the man from Honolulu, and you have played it with improvements
of your own. The man from Honolulu - miserable, leering creature -
communicated the tale to a rude knot of beach-combing drinkers in a
public-house, where (I will so far agree with your temperance
opinions) man is not always at his noblest; and the man from
Honolulu had himself been drinking - drinking, we may charitably
|
