| 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: would you say? Have they not been invented wholly for the sake of
pleasure?
CALLICLES: That is my notion of them.
SOCRATES: And as for the Muse of Tragedy, that solemn and august
personage--what are her aspirations? Is all her aim and desire only to
give pleasure to the spectators, or does she fight against them and refuse
to speak of their pleasant vices, and willingly proclaim in word and song
truths welcome and unwelcome?--which in your judgment is her character?
CALLICLES: There can be no doubt, Socrates, that Tragedy has her face
turned towards pleasure and the gratification of the audience.
SOCRATES: And is not that the sort of thing, Callicles, which we were just
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: that trembled beneath his feet. His was the last festival of the
reckless spendthrift who has thrown all prudence to the winds. The
devil had given him the key of the storehouse of human pleasures; he
had filled and refilled his hands, and he was fast nearing the bottom.
In a moment he had felt all that that enormous power could accomplish;
in a moment he had exercised it, proved it, wearied of it. What had
hitherto been the sum of human desires became as nothing. So often it
happens that with possession the vast poetry of desire must end, and
the thing possessed is seldom the thing that we dreamed of.
Beneath Melmoth's omnipotence lurked this tragical anticlimax of so
many a passion, and now the inanity of human nature was revealed to
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