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: ones; and some kinds of composition, such as epistles or panegyrical
orations, are more liable to suspicion than others; those, again, which
have a taste of sophistry in them, or the ring of a later age, or the
slighter character of a rhetorical exercise, or in which a motive or some
affinity to spurious writings can be detected, or which seem to have
originated in a name or statement really occurring in some classical
author, are also of doubtful credit; while there is no instance of any
ancient writing proved to be a forgery, which combines excellence with
length. A really great and original writer would have no object in
fathering his works on Plato; and to the forger or imitator, the 'literary
hack' of Alexandria and Athens, the Gods did not grant originality or
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: opposite sources, but they are not in themselves opposite. For must not
pleasure be of all things most absolutely like pleasure,--that is, like
itself?
SOCRATES: Yes, my good friend, just as colour is like colour;--in so far
as colours are colours, there is no difference between them; and yet we all
know that black is not only unlike, but even absolutely opposed to white:
or again, as figure is like figure, for all figures are comprehended under
one class; and yet particular figures may be absolutely opposed to one
another, and there is an infinite diversity of them. And we might find
similar examples in many other things; therefore do not rely upon this
argument, which would go to prove the unity of the most extreme opposites.
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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 Philebus by Plato: desires?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And yet they are very different; what common nature have we in
view when we call them by a single name?
PROTARCHUS: By heavens, Socrates, that is a question which is not easily
answered; but it must be answered.
SOCRATES: Then let us go back to our examples.
PROTARCHUS: Where shall we begin?
SOCRATES: Do we mean anything when we say 'a man thirsts'?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: We mean to say that he 'is empty'?
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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: still one instant. It changed so that I could not tell what it did look
like. Them were life and movement in it, and something terribly sinister. I
tried to calculate how far distant the fire was and how fast it was coming,
but that, in my state of mind, I could not do. The whole sweep of forest
below me was burning. I felt the strong breeze and smelled the burnt wood.
Puffs of white smoke ran out ahead of the main clouds, and I saw three of
them widely separated. What they meant puzzled me. But all of a sudden I
saw in front of the nearest a flickering gleam of red. Then I knew those
white streams of smoke rose where the fire was being sucked up the canyons.
They leaped along with amazing speed. It was then that I realized that Dick
and Hiram had been caught by one of these offshoots of the fire, and had
The Young Forester |