| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: genuine.
On the whole, not a twentieth part of the writings which pass under the
name of Plato, if we exclude the works rejected by the ancients themselves
and two or three other plausible inventions, can be fairly doubted by those
who are willing to allow that a considerable change and growth may have
taken place in his philosophy (see above). That twentieth debatable
portion scarcely in any degree affects our judgment of Plato, either as a
thinker or a writer, and though suggesting some interesting questions to
the scholar and critic, is of little importance to the general reader.
LESSER HIPPIAS
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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 Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: "Not altogether, Macumazahn," he answered, letting his eyes, those
strange eyes that could look at the sun without blinking, fall before my
gaze. "Have I not told you that I hate the House of Senzangakona? And
when Retief and his companions were killed, did not the spilling of
their blood mean war to the end between the Zulus and the White Men?
Did it not mean the death of Dingaan and of thousands of his people,
which is but a beginning of deaths? Now do you understand?"
"I understand that you are a very wicked man," I answered with
indignation.
"At least _you_ should not say so, Macumazahn," he replied in a new
voice, one with the ring of truth in it.
Child of Storm |
