| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: not forgotten dramatic propriety, and Socrates proposes at last to refer
the question to some older person.
SOME QUESTIONS RELATING TO FRIENDSHIP.
The subject of friendship has a lower place in the modern than in the
ancient world, partly because a higher place is assigned by us to love and
marriage. The very meaning of the word has become slighter and more
superficial; it seems almost to be borrowed from the ancients, and has
nearly disappeared in modern treatises on Moral Philosophy. The received
examples of friendship are to be found chiefly among the Greeks and Romans.
Hence the casuistical or other questions which arise out of the relations
of friends have not often been considered seriously in modern times. Many
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: reconnoitred the seven or eight customers through the chink between
the green curtains, and took the little coach-builder's measure. He
gauged the man's infatuation, and was very well satisfied to find that
the varnished doors of a tolerably sumptuous future were ready to turn
at a word from Antonia so soon as his own fancy had passed off.
" 'And that other one yonder?' asked he, pointing out the stout fine-
looking elderly man with the Cross of the Legion of Honor. 'Who is
he?'
" 'A retired custom-house officer.'
" 'The cut of his countenance is not reassuring,' said Maxime,
beholding the Sieur Denisart.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: play, and being under this impression, I was the more decided in saying
that we were in profound earnest. Dionysodorus said:
Reflect, Socrates; you may have to deny your words.
I have reflected, I said; and I shall never deny my words.
Well, said he, and so you say that you wish Cleinias to become wise?
Undoubtedly.
And he is not wise as yet?
At least his modesty will not allow him to say that he is.
You wish him, he said, to become wise and not, to be ignorant?
That we do.
You wish him to be what he is not, and no longer to be what he is?
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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 The Young Forester by Zane Grey: very desperation filled me with the fierceness of a cornered animal. I
caught sight of a short branch of the thickness of a man's arm, and,
grasping it, I slowly raised myself. When Bud's black, round head appeared
above the loft I hit it with all my might.
Bud bawled like a wounded animal, and fell to the ground with the noise of
a load of bricks. Through my peep-hole I saw him writhing, with both hands
pressed to his head. Then, lying flat on his back, he whipped out his
revolver. I saw the red spurt, the puff of smoke. Bang!
A bullet zipped through the brush, and tore a hole through the roof.
Bang! Bang!
I felt a hot, tearing pain in my arm.
The Young Forester |
