| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: main, they agreed with Burne. To the roommates it did not seem
such a vital subject as it had in the two years before, but the
logic of Burne's objections to the social system dovetailed so
completely with everything they had thought, that they questioned
rather than argued, and envied the sanity that enabled this man
to stand out so against all traditions.
Then Amory branched off and found that Burne was deep in other
things as well. Economics had interested him and he was turning
socialist. Pacifism played in the back of his mind, and he read
the Masses and Lyoff Tolstoi faithfully.
"How about religion?" Amory asked him.
 This Side of Paradise |
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 Euthydemus by Plato: him. This delighted Cleinias, whose laughter made Ctesippus ten times as
uproarious; but I cannot help thinking that the rogue must have picked up
this answer from them; for there has been no wisdom like theirs in our
time. Why do you laugh, Cleinias, I said, at such solemn and beautiful
things?
Why, Socrates, said Dionysodorus, did you ever see a beautiful thing?
Yes, Dionysodorus, I replied, I have seen many.
Were they other than the beautiful, or the same as the beautiful?
Now I was in a great quandary at having to answer this question, and I
thought that I was rightly served for having opened my mouth at all: I
said however, They are not the same as absolute beauty, but they have
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