| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: get rid of the feeling of the many to which Cebes was referring--the
feeling that when the man dies the soul will be dispersed, and that this
may be the extinction of her. For admitting that she may have been born
elsewhere, and framed out of other elements, and was in existence before
entering the human body, why after having entered in and gone out again may
she not herself be destroyed and come to an end?
Very true, Simmias, said Cebes; about half of what was required has been
proven; to wit, that our souls existed before we were born:--that the soul
will exist after death as well as before birth is the other half of which
the proof is still wanting, and has to be supplied; when that is given the
demonstration will be complete.
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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 Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: you can't get rid of it, somehow. Now there was that other nigger they
shot. They say he sat as still as if he was cut out of stone, with his
arms round his legs; and some of the fellows gave him blows about the head
and face before they took him off to shoot him. Now, that's the sort of
thing I can't do. It makes me sick here, somehow." Peter put his hand
rather low down over the pit of his stomach. "I'll shoot as many as you
like if they'll run, but they mustn't be tied up."
"I was there when that man was shot," said the stranger.
"Why, you seem to have been everywhere," said Peter. "Have you seen Cecil
Rhodes?"
"Yes, I have seen him," said the stranger.
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