| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: foolish as the dwar turned his stern glance upon him.
"It is even as I said," he cried. "He was not here when I brought
his food."
"But he is here now," said the officer grimly, "and his fetter is
locked about his ankle. Look! it has not been opened--but where
is the key? It should be upon the table at the end opposite him.
Where is the key, creature?" he shouted at Ghek.
"How should I, a prisoner, know better than my jailer the
whereabouts of the key to my fetters?" he retorted.
"But it lay here," cried the officer, pointing to the other end
of the table.
The Chessmen of Mars |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: creation of it, while the opposite character has led a few to regard the
future of the world as dark. The 'spectator of all time and of all
existence' sees more of 'the increasing purpose which through the ages ran'
than formerly: but to the inhabitant of a small state of Hellas the vision
was necessarily limited like the valley in which he dwelt. There was no
remote past on which his eye could rest, nor any future from which the veil
was partly lifted up by the analogy of history. The narrowness of view,
which to ourselves appears so singular, was to him natural, if not
unavoidable.
5. For the relation of the Republic to the Statesman and the Laws, and the
two other works of Plato which directly treat of politics, see the
The Republic |
