| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: Gaubertin, who had taken her from him, certainly owed him the little
Bournier.
These details, together with the deep mystery with which Socquard
manufactured his boiled wine, are sufficient to explain why his name
and that of the Cafe de la Paix were popular; but there were other
reasons for their renown. Nothing better than wine could be got at
Tonsard's and the other taverns in the valley; from Conches to Ville-
aux-Fayes, in a circumference of twenty miles, the Cafe Socquard was
the only place where the guests could play billiards and drink the
punch so admirably concocted by the proprietor. There alone could be
found a display of foreign wines, fine liqueurs, and brandied fruits.
|
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 Statesman by Plato: Philebus occurs the first criticism on the nature of classification. There
we are exhorted not to fall into the common error of passing from unity to
infinity, but to find the intermediate classes; and we are reminded that in
any process of generalization, there may be more than one class to which
individuals may be referred, and that we must carry on the process of
division until we have arrived at the infima species.
These precepts are not forgotten, either in the Sophist or in the
Statesman. The Sophist contains four examples of division, carried on by
regular steps, until in four different lines of descent we detect the
Sophist. In the Statesman the king or statesman is discovered by a similar
process; and we have a summary, probably made for the first time, of
Statesman |
