The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: LACHES: How flying?
SOCRATES: Why, as the Scythians are said to fight, flying as well as
pursuing; and as Homer says in praise of the horses of Aeneas, that they
knew 'how to pursue, and fly quickly hither and thither'; and he passes an
encomium on Aeneas himself, as having a knowledge of fear or flight, and
calls him 'an author of fear or flight.'
LACHES: Yes, Socrates, and there Homer is right: for he was speaking of
chariots, as you were speaking of the Scythian cavalry, who have that way
of fighting; but the heavy-armed Greek fights, as I say, remaining in his
rank.
SOCRATES: And yet, Laches, you must except the Lacedaemonians at Plataea,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: seemed to her a state of mind where dissatisfied men and women wanted to
share what harder working or more gifted people possessed. There were a few
who had too much of the world's goods and many who had too little. A
readjustment of such inequality and injustice must come, but Carley did not
see the remedy in Socialism.
She devoured books on the war with a morbid curiosity and hope that she
would find some illuminating truth as to the uselessness of sacrificing
young men in the glory and prime of their lives. To her war appeared a
matter of human nature rather than politics. Hate really was an effect of
war. In her judgment future wars could be avoided only in two ways--by men
becoming honest and just or by women refusing to have children to be
The Call of the Canyon |