| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: at the parting of the ways, whence the two roads lead, one to the Islands
of the Blessed, and the other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus shall judge those
who come from Asia, and Aeacus those who come from Europe. And to Minos I
shall give the primacy, and he shall hold a court of appeal, in case either
of the two others are in any doubt:--then the judgment respecting the last
journey of men will be as just as possible.'
From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the
following inferences:--Death, if I am right, is in the first place the
separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else.
And after they are separated they retain their several natures, as in life;
the body keeps the same habit, and the results of treatment or accident are
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: "Fatal to what? Not to his magnificent vitality."
Again she had a meditative moment. "And is his magnificent
vitality the cause of his vices?"
"Your questions are formidable, but I'm glad you put them. I was
thinking of his noble intellect. His vices, as you say, have been
much exaggerated: they consist mainly after all in one
comprehensive defect."
"A want of will?"
"A want of dignity."
"He doesn't recognise his obligations?"
"On the contrary, he recognises them with effusion, especially in
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: young Abraham were at hand to inspire and aid his father, and
there was no miserable shivering year of waiting in a half-faced
camp before the family could be suitably housed. They were not to
escape hardship, however. They fell victims to fever and ague,
which they had not known in Indiana, and became greatly
discouraged; and the winter after their arrival proved one of
intense cold and suffering for the pioneers, being known in the
history of the State as "the winter of the deep snow." The severe
weather began in the Christmas holidays with a storm of such
fatal suddenness that people who were out of doors had difficulty
in reaching their homes, and not a few perished, their fate
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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 Charmides by Plato: to dispose the mind of their brother Dionysius in the same course,' at a
time when they could not have been more than six or seven years of age--
also foolish allusions, such as the comparison of the Athenian empire to
the empire of Darius, which show a spirit very different from that of
Plato; and mistakes of fact, as e.g. about the Thirty Tyrants, whom the
writer of the letters seems to have confused with certain inferior
magistrates, making them in all fifty-one. These palpable errors and
absurdities are absolutely irreconcileable with their genuineness. And as
they appear to have a common parentage, the more they are studied, the more
they will be found to furnish evidence against themselves. The Seventh,
which is thought to be the most important of these Epistles, has affinities
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