| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: terms was, as far as we know, never fulfilled. No inference can be drawn
from this circumstance as to the probability of the words attributed to him
having been actually uttered. They express the aspiration of the first
martyr of philosophy, that he would leave behind him many followers,
accompanied by the not unnatural feeling that they would be fiercer and
more inconsiderate in their words when emancipated from his control.
The above remarks must be understood as applying with any degree of
certainty to the Platonic Socrates only. For, although these or similar
words may have been spoken by Socrates himself, we cannot exclude the
possibility, that like so much else, e.g. the wisdom of Critias, the poem
of Solon, the virtues of Charmides, they may have been due only to the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: small, thickly wooded hills. Up one of these, by means
of steps cut in the hard clay, the consul led Plunkett.
the very verge of an eminence was perched, a two-
room wooden cottage with a thatched roof. A Carib
woman was washing clothes outside. The consul
ushered the sheriff to the door of the room that over-
looked the harbour.
Two men were in the room, about to sit down, in their
shirt sleeves, to a table spread for dinner. They bore
little resemblance one to the other in detail; but the
general description given by Plunkett could have been
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