| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: he will get a beating from his mistress, Aspasia: this is the natural
exaggeration of what might be expected from an imperious woman. Socrates
is not to be taken seriously in all that he says, and Plato, both in the
Symposium and elsewhere, is not slow to admit a sort of Aristophanic
humour. How a great original genius like Plato might or might not have
written, what was his conception of humour, or what limits he would have
prescribed to himself, if any, in drawing the picture of the Silenus
Socrates, are problems which no critical instinct can determine.
On the other hand, the dialogue has several Platonic traits, whether
original or imitated may be uncertain. Socrates, when he departs from his
character of a 'know nothing' and delivers a speech, generally pretends
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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 Jolly Corner by Henry James: She appeared to imply that in case of its being still furnished he
might have been a little less opposed to the idea of a return. But
she passed straight into the vestibule, as if to leave her words
behind her, and the next moment he had opened the house-door and
was standing with her on the steps. He closed the door and, while
he re-pocketed his key, looking up and down, they took in the
comparatively harsh actuality of the Avenue, which reminded him of
the assault of the outer light of the Desert on the traveller
emerging from an Egyptian tomb. But he risked before they stepped
into the street his gathered answer to her speech. "For me it IS
lived in. For me it is furnished." At which it was easy for her
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