| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: relation to other things, and if multiform, then to number the forms; and
see first in the case of one of them, and then in the case of all of them,
what is that power of acting or being acted upon which makes each and all
of them to be what they are?
PHAEDRUS: You may very likely be right, Socrates.
SOCRATES: The method which proceeds without analysis is like the groping
of a blind man. Yet, surely, he who is an artist ought not to admit of a
comparison with the blind, or deaf. The rhetorician, who teaches his pupil
to speak scientifically, will particularly set forth the nature of that
being to which he addresses his speeches; and this, I conceive, to be the
soul.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: fashion.
Clara. I had ceased to remind you of it; I thought you did not like it--ah,
and the Golden Fleece!
Egmont. Thou seest it now.
Clara. And did the emperor really hang it round thy neck!
Egmont. He did, my child! And this chain and Order invest the wearer
with the noblest privileges. On earth I acknowledge no judge over my
actions, except the grand master of the Order, with the assembled chapter
of knights.
Egmont |
