| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: that was laying for a title, or a title that was laying for rocks.
It seemed to me that with my inexperience it would be foolish to go
into action with this mitrailleuse, so I ordered it to the rear
and told the facchino to provide something a little more primitive
to start with, something less elaborate, some gentle old-fashioned
flint-lock, smooth-bore, double-barreled thing, calculated to cripple
at two hundred yards and kill at forty--an arrangement suitable for a
beginner who could be satisfied with moderate results on the offstart
and did not wish to take the whole territory in the first campaign.
But in vain. He was not able to mend the matter, all the verbs being
of the same build, all Gatlings, all of the same caliber and delivery,
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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 Lysis by Plato: driven to the second; and from the second to the third; and neither the two
boys nor Socrates are satisfied with any of the three or with all of them.
Socrates turns to the poets, who affirm that God brings like to like
(Homer), and to philosophers (Empedocles), who also assert that like is the
friend of like. But the bad are not friends, for they are not even like
themselves, and still less are they like one another. And the good have no
need of one another, and therefore do not care about one another. Moreover
there are others who say that likeness is a cause of aversion, and
unlikeness of love and friendship; and they too adduce the authority of
poets and philosophers in support of their doctrines; for Hesiod says that
'potter is jealous of potter, bard of bard;' and subtle doctors tell us
Lysis |
