| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: neither be spoken, nor uttered, nor addressed; a piece of sophistry
attributed to Gorgias, which reappears in the Sophist. And he proceeds to
demolish, with no less delight than he had set up, the Heracleitean theory
of language.
In the latter part of the dialogue Socrates becomes more serious, though he
does not lay aside but rather aggravates his banter of the Heracleiteans,
whom here, as in the Theaetetus, he delights to ridicule. What was the
origin of this enmity we can hardly determine:--was it due to the natural
dislike which may be supposed to exist between the 'patrons of the flux'
and the 'friends of the ideas' (Soph.)? or is it to be attributed to the
indignation which Plato felt at having wasted his time upon 'Cratylus and
|
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 Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: The awful thing was its source.
For it had come from the large
covered vat in that ghoulish corner of crawling black shadows.
VI. The Tomb-Legions
Published July 1922 in Home Brew Vol.
1, No. 6, p. 57-62.
When Dr. Herbert West disappeared a year
ago, the Boston police questioned me closely. They suspected that
I was holding something back, and perhaps suspected graver things;
but I could not tell them the truth because they would not have
believed it. They knew, indeed, that West had been connected with
Herbert West: Reanimator |
