The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: Thus, with some intimation of the connexion and unity of virtue and
knowledge, we arrive at no distinct result. The two aspects of courage are
never harmonized. The knowledge which in the Protagoras is explained as
the faculty of estimating pleasures and pains is here lost in an unmeaning
and transcendental conception. Yet several true intimations of the nature
of courage are allowed to appear: (1) That courage is moral as well as
physical: (2) That true courage is inseparable from knowledge, and yet (3)
is based on a natural instinct. Laches exhibits one aspect of courage;
Nicias the other. The perfect image and harmony of both is only realized
in Socrates himself.
The Dialogue offers one among many examples of the freedom with which Plato
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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 Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: must be wiser than folk! For I thought I perceived the policy, and yet
fell in with it.
I was in this frame, my heart beating, the grey eyes plain before me
like two stars, when Andie broke in upon my musing.
"I see ye has gotten guid news," said he.
I found him looking curiously in my face; with that there came before
me like a vision of James Stewart and the court of Inverary; and my
mind turned at once like a door upon its hinges. Trials, I reflected,
sometimes draw out longer than is looked for. Even if I came to
Inverary just too late, something might yet be attempted in the
interests of James - and in those of my own character, the best would
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