| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: are not the same, then Simonides is not inconsistent with himself. I dare
say that Prodicus and many others would say, as Hesiod says,
'On the one hand, hardly can a man become good,
For the gods have made virtue the reward of toil,
But on the other hand, when you have climbed the height,
Then, to retain virtue, however difficult the acquisition, is easy (Works
and Days).'
Prodicus heard and approved; but Protagoras said: Your correction,
Socrates, involves a greater error than is contained in the sentence which
you are correcting.
Alas! I said, Protagoras; then I am a sorry physician, and do but aggravate
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: cocoon. She serves up, like some rare dainty, to your lavished eyes,
the forms which her bodice scarcely revealed in the morning. At the
theatre she never mounts higher than the second tier, excepting at the
Italiens. You can there watch at your leisure the studied
deliberateness of her movements. The enchanting deceiver plays off all
the little political artifices of her sex so naturally as to exclude
all idea of art or premeditation. If she has a royally beautiful hand,
the most perspicacious beholder will believe that it is absolutely
necessary that she should twist, or refix, or push aside the ringlet
or curl she plays with. If she has some dignity of profile, you will
be persuaded that she is giving irony or grace to what she says to her
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