| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: in every assemblage there are sharply defined lines of
difference. There are those who are going home soon, God willing;
there are those who will go home some time after long days and
longer nights. And there are those who will never go home and who
know it. And because of this the ones who are never going home
are most festively clad, as if, by way of compensation, the
nurses mean to give them all future Christmasses in one. They
receive an extra orange, or a pair of gloves, perhaps,--and they
are not the less grateful because they understand. And when
everything is over they lay away in the bedside stand the gloves
they will never wear, and divide the extra orange with a less
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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 Protagoras by Plato: of speaking as he likes. But Alcibiades answers that the two cases are not
parallel. For Socrates admits his inability to speak long; will Protagoras
in like manner acknowledge his inability to speak short?
Counsels of moderation are urged first in a few words by Critias, and then
by Prodicus in balanced and sententious language: and Hippias proposes an
umpire. But who is to be the umpire? rejoins Socrates; he would rather
suggest as a compromise that Protagoras shall ask and he will answer, and
that when Protagoras is tired of asking he himself will ask and Protagoras
shall answer. To this the latter yields a reluctant assent.
Protagoras selects as his thesis a poem of Simonides of Ceos, in which he
professes to find a contradiction. First the poet says,
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