| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: does he mean to indicate by the term 'good'? If he continues to assert
that there is some trivial sense in which pleasure is one, Socrates may
retort by saying that knowledge is one, but the result will be that such
merely verbal and trivial conceptions, whether of knowledge or pleasure,
will spoil the discussion, and will prove the incapacity of the two
disputants. In order to avoid this danger, he proposes that they shall
beat a retreat, and, before they proceed, come to an understanding about
the 'high argument' of the one and the many.
Protarchus agrees to the proposal, but he is under the impression that
Socrates means to discuss the common question--how a sensible object can be
one, and yet have opposite attributes, such as 'great' and 'small,' 'light'
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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 Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: Fain would I live, yet loath to live in woods.
BREMO.
Thou shalt not choose, it shall be as I say, &
therefore, follow me.
[Exit.]
ACT III. SCENE IV. The same.
[Enter Mucedorus solus.]
MUCEDORUS.
It was my will an hour ago and more,
As was my promise, for to make return,
But other business hindered my pretence.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: However ready she had been to sacrifice her fortune and even her
children to the man who had chosen her, loved her, adored her, and to
whom she was still the only woman in the world, the remorse she felt
for the weakness of her maternal love threw her into terrible
alternations of feeling. As a wife, she suffered in heart; as a
mother, through her children; as a Christian, for all.
She kept silence, and hid the cruel struggle in her soul. Her husband,
sole arbiter of the family fate, was the master by whose will it must
be guided; he was responsible to God only. Besides, could she reproach
him for the use he now made of his fortune, after the
disinterestedness he had shown to her for many happy years? Was she to
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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 Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: sat in the passage, with his knuckles to his eyes.
In the meantime Mrs. Darling had put the children to bed in
unwonted silence and lit their night-lights. They could hear
Nana barking, and John whimpered, "It is because he is chaining
her up in the yard," but Wendy was wiser.
"That is not Nana's unhappy bark," she said, little guessing
what was about to happen; "that is her bark when she smells
danger."
Danger!
"Are you sure, Wendy?"
"Oh, yes."
Peter Pan |
