| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: explained; he would never marry, for no sane man would allow
himself to fall in love until after the revolution.
He sat in a big arm-chair, with his legs crossed, and his head so
far in the shadow that one saw only two glowing lights, reflected
from the fire on the hearth. He spoke simply, and utterly
without emotion; with the manner of a teacher setting forth to a
group of scholars an axiom in geometry, he would enunciate such
propositions as made the hair of an ordinary person rise on end.
And when the auditor had asserted his non-comprehension, he would
proceed to elucidate by some new proposition, yet more appalling.
To Jurgis the Herr Dr. Schliemann assumed the proportions of a
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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 Charmides by Plato: to forge them; and in which the writings of a school were naturally
attributed to the founder of the school. And even without intentional
fraud, there was an inclination to believe rather than to enquire. Would
Mr. Grote accept as genuine all the writings which he finds in the lists of
learned ancients attributed to Hippocrates, to Xenophon, to Aristotle? The
Alexandrian Canon of the Platonic writings is deprived of credit by the
admission of the Epistles, which are not only unworthy of Plato, and in
several passages plagiarized from him, but flagrantly at variance with
historical fact. It will be seen also that I do not agree with Mr. Grote's
views about the Sophists; nor with the low estimate which he has formed of
Plato's Laws; nor with his opinion respecting Plato's doctrine of the
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