| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: of them?' 'Do you see,' retorts Euthydemus, 'what has the quality of
vision or what has not the quality of vision?' 'What has the quality of
vision.' 'And you see our garments?' 'Yes.' 'Then our garments have the
quality of vision.' A similar play of words follows, which is successfully
retorted by Ctesippus, to the great delight of Cleinias, who is rebuked by
Socrates for laughing at such solemn and beautiful things.
'But are there any beautiful things? And if there are such, are they the
same or not the same as absolute beauty?' Socrates replies that they are
not the same, but each of them has some beauty present with it. 'And are
you an ox because you have an ox present with you?' After a few more
amphiboliae, in which Socrates, like Ctesippus, in self-defence borrows the
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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 Aspern Papers by Henry James: as I have you can form no idea of their domestic desolation.
They live on nothing, for they have nothing to live on."
The other idea that had come into my head was connected
with a high blank wall which appeared to confine an expanse
of ground on one side of the house. Blank I call it,
but it was figured over with the patches that please a painter,
repaired breaches, crumblings of plaster, extrusions of brick
that had turned pink with time; and a few thin trees, with the poles
of certain rickety trellises, were visible over the top.
The place was a garden, and apparently it belonged to the house.
It suddenly occurred to me that if it did belong to the house
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