| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: his hands in evident embarrassment, and his eyes wandered helplessly
about the great bare room.
"Who are you?" demanded the commissioner.
"My name is Dummel, sir, Johann Dummel."
"And your occupation?"
"My occupation? Oh, yes, I - I am a valet, valet to Professor
Fellner."
The commissioner sat up and looked interested. He knew Fellner
personally and liked him. "What have you to report to me?" he
asked eagerly.
"I - I don't know whether I ought to have come here, but at home - "
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: IV. The bitterness of the Statesman is characteristic of Plato's later
style, in which the thoughts of youth and love have fled away, and we are
no longer tended by the Muses or the Graces. We do not venture to say that
Plato was soured by old age, but certainly the kindliness and courtesy of
the earlier dialogues have disappeared. He sees the world under a harder
and grimmer aspect: he is dealing with the reality of things, not with
visions or pictures of them: he is seeking by the aid of dialectic only,
to arrive at truth. He is deeply impressed with the importance of
classification: in this alone he finds the true measure of human things;
and very often in the process of division curious results are obtained.
For the dialectical art is no respecter of persons: king and vermin-taker
Statesman |
