| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: the Symposium in which Alcibiades describes himself as self-convicted by
the words of Socrates. For the disparaging manner in which Schleiermacher
has spoken of this dialogue there seems to be no sufficient foundation. At
the same time, the lesson imparted is simple, and the irony more
transparent than in the undoubted dialogues of Plato. We know, too, that
Alcibiades was a favourite thesis, and that at least five or six dialogues
bearing this name passed current in antiquity, and are attributed to
contemporaries of Socrates and Plato. (1) In the entire absence of real
external evidence (for the catalogues of the Alexandrian librarians cannot
be regarded as trustworthy); and (2) in the absence of the highest marks
either of poetical or philosophical excellence; and (3) considering that we
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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 Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: "that I am nothing more than a woman to him?"
She raised her head proudly; and as she glanced at Frenhofer with
flashing eyes she saw her lover gazing once more at the picture he had
formerly taken for a Giorgione.
"Ah!" she cried, "let us go in; he never looked at me like that!"
"Old man!" said Poussin, roused from his meditation by Gillette's
voice, "see this sword. I will plunge it into your heart at the first
cry of that young girl. I will set fire to your house, and no one
shall escape from it. Do you understand me?"
His look was gloomy and the tones of his voice were terrible. His
attitude, and above all the gesture with which he laid his hand upon
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