| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: that hovered about the coral lips, yet redder as they seemed by force
of contrast with the even teeth, was the smile of some sorrowing
angel. Lucien's hands denoted race; they were shapely hands; hands
that men obey at a sign, and women love to kiss. Lucien was slender
and of middle height. From a glance at his feet, he might have been
taken for a girl in disguise, and this so much the more easily from
the feminine contour of the hips, a characteristic of keen-witted, not
to say, astute, men. This is a trait which seldom misleads, and in
Lucien it was a true indication of character; for when he analyzed the
society of to-day, his restless mind was apt to take its stand on the
lower ground of those diplomatists who hold that success justifies the
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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 Republic by Plato: external forms; even the Mahometan who renounces the use of pictures and
images has a temple in which he worships the Most High, as solemn and
beautiful as any Greek or Christian building. Feeling too and thought are
not really opposed; for he who thinks must feel before he can execute. And
the highest thoughts, when they become familiarized to us, are always
tending to pass into the form of feeling.
Plato does not seriously intend to expel poets from life and society. But
he feels strongly the unreality of their writings; he is protesting against
the degeneracy of poetry in his own day as we might protest against the
want of serious purpose in modern fiction, against the unseemliness or
extravagance of some of our poets or novelists, against the time-serving of
The Republic |
