| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: useful to this end?
Eryxias once more gave his assent, but the small argument considerably
troubled him.
SOCRATES: And what is your opinion about another question:--Would you say
that the same thing can be at one time useful and at another useless for
the production of the same result?
ERYXIAS: I cannot say more than that if we require the same thing to
produce the same result, then it seems to me to be useful; if not, not.
SOCRATES: Then if without the aid of fire we could make a brazen statue,
we should not want fire for that purpose; and if we did not want it, it
would be useless to us? And the argument applies equally in other cases.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: as looked into the barrel: it was my last chance, but I thought my
heart would have come right out of its bearings. Then he fired.
Lucky for me it was no shot-gun, for the bullet struck within an
inch of me and knocked the dirt in my eyes.
Just you try and see if you can lie quiet, and let a man take a
sitting shot at you and miss you by a hair. But I did, and lucky
too. A while Case stood with the Winchester at the port-arms; then
lie gave a little laugh to himself, and stepped round the ferns.
"Laugh!" thought I. "If you had the wit of a louse you would be
praying!"
I was all as taut as a ship's hawser or the spring of a watch, and
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