| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: becoming, or otherwise?
I cannot answer.
But I can venture to say, that even if one thing were older or younger than
another, it could not become older or younger in a greater degree than it
was at first; for equals added to unequals, whether to periods of time or
to anything else, leave the difference between them the same as at first.
Of course.
Then that which is, cannot become older or younger than that which is,
since the difference of age is always the same; the one is and has become
older and the other younger; but they are no longer becoming so.
True.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: amusement was occasioned by every one pushing with might and main at his
neighbour in order to make a place for him next to themselves, until at the
two ends of the row one had to get up and the other was rolled over
sideways. Now I, my friend, was beginning to feel awkward; my former bold
belief in my powers of conversing with him had vanished. And when Critias
told him that I was the person who had the cure, he looked at me in such an
indescribable manner, and was just going to ask a question. And at that
moment all the people in the palaestra crowded about us, and, O rare! I
caught a sight of the inwards of his garment, and took the flame. Then I
could no longer contain myself. I thought how well Cydias understood the
nature of love, when, in speaking of a fair youth, he warns some one 'not
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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 House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: resumption of the morning's task with a sigh which implied that,
after all, she had proved herself unfit for higher uses.
The luncheon table showed a depleted circle. ALI the men but Jack
Stepney and Dorset had returned to town (it seemed to Lily a last
touch of irony that Selden and Percy Gryce should have gone in
the same train), and Lady Cressida and the attendant Wetheralls
had been despatched by motor to lunch at a distant country-house.
At such moments of diminished interest it was usual for Mrs.
Dorset to keep her room till the afternoon; but on this occasion
she drifted in when luncheon was half over, hollowed-eyed and
drooping, but with an edge of malice under her indifference.
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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 The Pupil by Henry James: himself before he confessed it. He thought it the oddest thing to
have a struggle with the child about. He wondered he didn't hate
the hope of the Moreens for bringing the struggle on. But by the
time it began any such sentiment for that scion was closed to him.
Morgan was a special case, and to know him was to accept him on his
own odd terms. Pemberton had spent his aversion to special cases
before arriving at knowledge. When at last he did arrive his
quandary was great. Against every interest he had attached
himself. They would have to meet things together. Before they
went home that evening at Nice the boy had said, clinging to his
arm:
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