| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: shore. He was withdrawing, his spirit was leaving her. He knew.
And in real grief, tormented by her own double consciousness and
reaction, she began to weep. He took no notice, or did not even know.
The storm of weeping swelled and shook her, and shook him.
'Ay!' he said. 'It was no good that time. You wasn't there.'--So he
knew! Her sobs became violent.
'But what's amiss?' he said. 'It's once in a while that way.'
'I...I can't love you,' she sobbed, suddenly feeling her heart
breaking.
'Canna ter? Well, dunna fret! There's no law says as tha's got to. Ta'e
it for what it is.'
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: elsewhere, Socrates awakens the consciousness not of sin but of ignorance.
Self-humiliation is the first step to knowledge, even of the commonest
things. No man knows how ignorant he is, and no man can arrive at virtue
and wisdom who has not once in his life, at least, been convicted of error.
The process by which the soul is elevated is not unlike that which
religious writers describe under the name of 'conversion,' if we substitute
the sense of ignorance for the consciousness of sin.
In some respects the dialogue differs from any other Platonic composition.
The aim is more directly ethical and hortatory; the process by which the
antagonist is undermined is simpler than in other Platonic writings, and
the conclusion more decided. There is a good deal of humour in the manner
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