| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: and the great power of nature; from Aristophanes, that love is the child of
want, and is not merely the love of the congenial or of the whole, but (as
he adds) of the good; from Agathon, that love is of beauty, not however of
beauty only, but of birth in beauty. As it would be out of character for
Socrates to make a lengthened harangue, the speech takes the form of a
dialogue between Socrates and a mysterious woman of foreign extraction.
She elicits the final truth from one who knows nothing, and who, speaking
by the lips of another, and himself a despiser of rhetoric, is proved also
to be the most consummate of rhetoricians (compare Menexenus).
The last of the six discourses begins with a short argument which
overthrows not only Agathon but all the preceding speakers by the help of a
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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 The Coxon Fund by Henry James: "Which Miss Anvoy declined?"
"Except as a formal trust."
"You mean except as committing herself legally to place the money?"
"On the head of the deserving object, the great man frustrated,"
said Gravener. "She only consents to act in the spirit of Sir
Gregory's scheme."
"And you blame her for that?" I asked with some intensity.
My tone couldn't have been harsh, but he coloured a little and
there was a queer light in his eye. "My dear fellow, if I 'blamed'
the young lady I'm engaged to I shouldn't immediately say it even
to so old a friend as you." I saw that some deep discomfort, some
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