| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: Petersburg to be near her son and have him with her for the
holidays.
The boy was distinguished both by his brilliant ability and by
his immense self-esteem. He was first both in his
studies--especially in mathematics, of which he was particularly
fond--and also in drill and in riding. Though of more than
average height, he was handsome and agile, and he would have been
an altogether exemplary cadet had it not been for his quick
temper. He was remarkably truthful, and was neither dissipated
nor addicted to drink. The only faults that marred his conduct
were fits of fury to which he was subject and during which he
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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 Symposium by Plato: first, that man cannot exist in isolation; he must be reunited if he is to
be perfected: secondly, that love is the mediator and reconciler of poor,
divided human nature: thirdly, that the loves of this world are an
indistinct anticipation of an ideal union which is not yet realized.
The speech of Agathon is conceived in a higher strain, and receives the
real, if half-ironical, approval of Socrates. It is the speech of the
tragic poet and a sort of poem, like tragedy, moving among the gods of
Olympus, and not among the elder or Orphic deities. In the idea of the
antiquity of love he cannot agree; love is not of the olden time, but
present and youthful ever. The speech may be compared with that speech of
Socrates in the Phaedrus in which he describes himself as talking
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