| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: College, Cambridge, in a series of articles which he has contributed to the
Journal of Philology, has put forward an entirely new explanation of the
Platonic 'Ideas.' He supposes that in the mind of Plato they took, at
different times in his life, two essentially different forms:--an earlier
one which is found chiefly in the Republic and the Phaedo, and a later,
which appears in the Theaetetus, Philebus, Sophist, Politicus, Parmenides,
Timaeus. In the first stage of his philosophy Plato attributed Ideas to
all things, at any rate to all things which have classes or common notions:
these he supposed to exist only by participation in them. In the later
Dialogues he no longer included in them manufactured articles and ideas of
relation, but restricted them to 'types of nature,' and having become
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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 Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: concerning that apartment." Again turning to the General, he
said, "For God's sake, my dear friend, be candid with me, and let
me know the disagreeable particulars which have befallen you
under a roof, where, with consent of the owner, you should have
met nothing save comfort."
The General seemed distressed by this appeal, and paused a moment
before he replied. "My dear lord," he at length said, "what
happened to me last night is of a nature so peculiar and so
unpleasant, that I could hardly bring myself to detail it even to
your lordship, were it not that, independent of my wish to
gratify any request of yours, I think that sincerity on my part
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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 An International Episode by Henry James: "We wish to hear you speak."
"I never speak--except to young ladies," said Lord Lambeth, smiling.
Bessie Alden looked at him a while, smiling, too, in the shadow
of her parasol. "You are very strange," she murmured.
"I don't think I approve of you."
"Ah, now, don't be severe, Miss Alden," said Lord Lambeth,
smiling still more. "Please don't be severe. I want you
to like me--awfully."
"To like you awfully? You must not laugh at me, then, when I make mistakes.
I consider it my right--as a freeborn American--to make as many mistakes
as I choose."
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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 Phaedrus by Plato: you fall short in either of these, you will be to that extent defective.
But the art, as far as there is an art, of rhetoric does not lie in the
direction of Lysias or Thrasymachus.
PHAEDRUS: In what direction then?
SOCRATES: I conceive Pericles to have been the most accomplished of
rhetoricians.
PHAEDRUS: What of that?
SOCRATES: All the great arts require discussion and high speculation about
the truths of nature; hence come loftiness of thought and completeness of
execution. And this, as I conceive, was the quality which, in addition to
his natural gifts, Pericles acquired from his intercourse with Anaxagoras
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