| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Astoria by Washington Irving: was thrown into some confusion by two of the hunters, named
Harrington, expressing their intention to abandon the expedition
and return home. One of these had joined the party in the
preceding autumn, having been hunting for two years on the
Missouri; the other had engaged at St. Louis, in the following
March, and had come up from thence with Mr. Hunt. He now declared
that he had enlisted merely for the purpose of following his
brother, and persuading him to return; having been enjoined to do
so by his mother, whose anxiety had been awakened by the idea of
his going on such a wild and distant expedition.
The loss of two stark hunters and prime riflemen was a serious
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: [2] For these {oi omoioi}, see "Cyrop." I. v. 5; "Hell." III. iii. 5.
[3] Lit. "supplies and necessaries."
But I will resume at a somewhat higher point and describe the manner
in which the king sets out on an expedition. As a preliminary step,
before leaving home he offers sacrifice (in company with[4] his staff)
to Zeus Agetor (the Leader), and if the victims prove favourable then
and there the priest,[5] who bears the sacred fire, takes thereof from
off the altar and leads the way to the boundaries of the land. Here
for the second time the king does sacrifice[6] to Zeus and Athena; and
as soon as the offerings are accepted by those two divinities he steps
across the boundaries of the land. And all the while the fire from
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: of Kent, near Margate, called the North Foreland, making what they
call the mouth of the river and the port of London, though it be
here above sixty miles over.
At Walton-under-the-Naze they find on the shore copperas-stone in
great quantities; and there are several large works called copperas
houses, where they make it with great expense.
On this promontory is a new mark erected by the Trinity House men,
and at the public expense, being a round brick tower, near eighty
feet high. The sea gains so much upon the land here by the
continual winds at south-west, that within the memory of some of
the inhabitants there they have lost above thirty acres of land in
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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 Agesilaus by Xenophon: confidence implied in his selection as the fitting guardian of a good
deed on deposit.[4]
[3] Or, "no one would have felt to owe him anything."
[4] See "Cyrop." VI. i. 35; Rutherford, "New Phrynichus," p. 312.
Again, who more likely to put a gulf impassable between himself and
the sordid love of gain[5] than he, who nobly preferred to be stinted
of his dues[6] rather than snatch at the lion's share unjustly? It is
a case in point that, being pronounced by the state to be the rightful
heir to his brother's[7] wealth, he made over one half to his maternal
relatives because he saw that they were in need; and to the truth of
this assertion all Lacedaemon is witness. What, too, was his answer to
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