| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: logic. Ancient logic would be the propaedeutic or gate of approach to
logical science,--nothing more. But to pursue such speculations further,
though not irrelevant, might lead us too far away from the argument of the
dialogue.
The Euthydemus is, of all the Dialogues of Plato, that in which he
approaches most nearly to the comic poet. The mirth is broader, the irony
more sustained, the contrast between Socrates and the two Sophists,
although veiled, penetrates deeper than in any other of his writings. Even
Thrasymachus, in the Republic, is at last pacified, and becomes a friendly
and interested auditor of the great discourse. But in the Euthydemus the
mask is never dropped; the accustomed irony of Socrates continues to the
|
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 Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: so keenly had the workmen entered into the spirit of the
beacon-house operations, that they continued to bore the holes
in the rock till some of them were knee-deep in water.
The operations at this time were entirely directed to the
erection of the beacon, in which every man felt an equal
interest, as at this critical period the slightest casualty to
any of the boats at the rock might have been fatal to himself
individually, while it was perhaps peculiar to the writer more
immediately to feel for the safety of the whole. Each log or
upright beam of the beacon was to be fixed to the rock by two
strong and massive bats or stanchions of iron. These bats,
|