| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: many outward marks, would really have been confounded in the mind of
Anytus, or Callicles, or of any intelligent Athenian, with the splendid
foreigners who from time to time visited Athens, or appeared at the Olympic
games. The man of genius, the great original thinker, the disinterested
seeker after truth, the master of repartee whom no one ever defeated in an
argument, was separated, even in the mind of the vulgar Athenian, by an
'interval which no geometry can express,' from the balancer of sentences,
the interpreter and reciter of the poets, the divider of the meanings of
words, the teacher of rhetoric, the professor of morals and manners.
2. The use of the term 'Sophist' in the dialogues of Plato also shows that
the bad sense was not affixed by his genius, but already current. When
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Macbeth by William Shakespeare: Wife. I hope in no place so vnsanctified,
Where such as thou may'st finde him
Mur. He's a Traitor
Son. Thou ly'st thou shagge-ear'd Villaine
Mur. What you Egge?
Yong fry of Treachery?
Son. He ha's kill'd me Mother,
Run away I pray you.
Exit crying Murther.
Scaena Tertia.
Enter Malcolme and Macduffe.
 Macbeth |