| 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: principle which, if I can, I would fain prove to you; that you should
change your mind, and, instead of the intemperate and insatiate life,
choose that which is orderly and sufficient and has a due provision for
daily needs. Do I make any impression on you, and are you coming over to
the opinion that the orderly are happier than the intemperate? Or do I
fail to persuade you, and, however many tales I rehearse to you, do you
continue of the same opinion still?
CALLICLES: The latter, Socrates, is more like the truth.
SOCRATES: Well, I will tell you another image, which comes out of the same
school:--Let me request you to consider how far you would accept this as an
account of the two lives of the temperate and intemperate in a figure:--
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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 Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: decorated life of the Countess of Altringham would be just as
poor and low-ceilinged a place as the little room in which he
and she now sat, elbow to elbow yet so unapproachably apart.
If Strefford could not live without these people, neither could
she and Nick; but for reasons how different! And if his
opportunities had been theirs, what a world they would have
created for themselves! Such imaginings were vain, and she
shrank back from them into the present. After all, as Lady
Altringham she would have the power to create that world which
she and Nick had dreamed ... only she must create it alone.
Well, that was probably the law of things. All human happiness
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