| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: own lips, I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only prove
to us that justice is better than injustice, but show what they either of
them do to the possessor of them, which makes the one to be a good and the
other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men.
I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but on hearing
these words I was quite delighted, and said: Sons of an illustrious
father, that was not a bad beginning of the Elegiac verses which the
admirer of Glaucon made in honour of you after you had distinguished
yourselves at the battle of Megara:--
'Sons of Ariston,' he sang, 'divine offspring of an illustrious hero.'
The epithet is very appropriate, for there is something truly divine in
 The Republic |
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 The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: a soda cracker.
"'Now, this cigar man,' I went on, 'is one of the types. He's lived
twenty years on one street without learning as much as you would in
getting a once-over shave from a lockjawed barber in a Kansas
crossroads town. But he's a New Yorker, and he'll brag about that all
the time when he isn't picking up live wires or getting in front of
street cars or paying out money to wire-tappers or standing under a
safe that's being hoisted into a skyscraper. When a New Yorker does
loosen up,' says I, 'it's like the spring decomposition of the ice jam
in the Allegheny River. He'll swamp you with cracked ice and back-
water if you don't get out of the way.
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