| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: drops from the rain of the afternoon. Night after night, in my own
bedroom in the country, I have given ear to this perturbing concert
of the wind among the woods; but whether it was a difference in the
trees, or the lie of the ground, or because I was myself outside
and in the midst of it, the fact remains that the wind sang to a
different tune among these woods of Gevaudan. I hearkened and
hearkened; and meanwhile sleep took gradual possession of my body
and subdued my thoughts and senses; but still my last waking effort
was to listen and distinguish, and my last conscious state was one
of wonder at the foreign clamour in my ears.
Twice in the course of the dark hours - once when a stone galled me
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: Do any remain?
Indeed, Socrates, I cannot find any.
But, O Menexenus! I said, may we not have been altogether wrong in our
conclusions?
I am sure that we have been wrong, Socrates, said Lysis. And he blushed as
he spoke, the words seeming to come from his lips involuntarily, because
his whole mind was taken up with the argument; there was no mistaking his
attentive look while he was listening.
I was pleased at the interest which was shown by Lysis, and I wanted to
give Menexenus a rest, so I turned to him and said, I think, Lysis, that
what you say is true, and that, if we had been right, we should never have
Lysis |
