The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: She was--indeed she was magnificently--eupeptic. That, I think,
was the central secret of her agreeableness, and, moreover, that
she was infinitely kind-hearted. I helped her at last into an
opening she coveted, and she amazed me by a sudden display of
business capacity. She has now a typewriting bureau in Riffle's
Inn, and she runs it with a brisk vigour and considerable
success, albeit a certain plumpness has overtaken her. And she
still loves her kind. She married a year or so ago a boy half
her age--a wretch of a poet, a wretched poet, and given to drugs,
a thing with lank fair hair always getting into his blue eyes,
and limp legs. She did it, she said, because he needed
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: to add to you sufficient blessing and will not let you come to want.
But in this matter every one refuses and resists, and all are afraid
that they will perish from bodily want, and cannot now support one
respectable preacher, where formerly they filled ten fat paunches. In
this we also deserve that God deprive us of His Word and blessing, and
again allow preachers of lies to arise to lead us to the devil, and, in
addition, to drain our sweat and blood.
But those who keep in sight God's will and commandment have the
promise that everything which they bestow upon temporal and spiritual
fathers, and whatever they do to honor them, shall be richly
recompensed to them, so that they shall have, not bread, clothing, and
|
The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: [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.;
Boeckh, "P. E. A." IV. x. (Eng. tr. G. Cornewall Lewis, p. 538).
|
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 Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: struggle, this was done with wonderful quickness, and proved in
the main effective, though occasionally a rebel boat managed to
slip in or out without being discovered and fired upon by the
ships on guard.
In November Captain Charles Wilkes learned that Ex-Senators J. M.
Mason and John Slidell, two prominent Confederates bound on an
important mission to Europe, had succeeded in reaching Cuba, and
from there had taken passage for England on the British mail
steamer Trent. He stopped the Trent and took Mason and Slidell
prisoners, afterward allowing the steamer to proceed on her way.
The affair caused intense excitement both in England and in the
|