| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: helpful, but, truth to say, I had not known for weeks whether the
sun shone upon the earth and whether the stars above still moved
on their appointed courses. I was just then giving up some days
of my allotted span to the last chapters of the novel "Nostromo,"
a tale of an imaginary (but true) seaboard, which is still
mentioned now and again, and indeed kindly, sometimes in
connection with the word "failure" and sometimes in conjunction
with the word "astonishing." I have no opinion on this
discrepancy. It's the sort of difference that can never be
settled. All I know is that, for twenty months, neglecting the
common joys of life that fall to the lot of the humblest on this
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: processes of division and enumeration.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, my good friend?
SOCRATES: I say that a fourth class is still wanted.
PROTARCHUS: What will that be?
SOCRATES: Find the cause of the third or compound, and add this as a
fourth class to the three others.
PROTARCHUS: And would you like to have a fifth class or cause of
resolution as well as a cause of composition?
SOCRATES: Not, I think, at present; but if I want a fifth at some future
time you shall allow me to have it.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
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