| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: in the previous state of the individual, but of the race. It is potential,
not actual, and can only be appropriated by strenuous exertion.
The idealism of Plato is here presented in a less developed form than in
the Phaedo and Phaedrus. Nothing is said of the pre-existence of ideas of
justice, temperance, and the like. Nor is Socrates positive of anything
but the duty of enquiry. The doctrine of reminiscence too is explained
more in accordance with fact and experience as arising out of the
affinities of nature (ate tes thuseos oles suggenous ouses). Modern
philosophy says that all things in nature are dependent on one another; the
ancient philosopher had the same truth latent in his mind when he affirmed
that out of one thing all the rest may be recovered. The subjective was
|
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 Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: quietly correct clothes, and Emma gave them tea, and they talked
on every subject from suffrage to salad dressings, and from war
to weather, but never once was mention made of business. And
Emma McChesney's life had been interwoven with business for more
than fifteen years.
There were dinners--long, heavy, correct dinners. Emma, very
well dressed, bright-eyed, alert, intelligent, vital, became very
popular at these affairs, and her husband very proud of her
popularity. And if any one as thoroughly alive as Mrs. T. A.
Buck could have been bored to extinction by anything, then those
dinners would have accomplished the deadly work.
Emma McChesney & Co. |
