| 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: among gods and men; you think that you ought to cultivate inequality or
excess, and do not care about geometry.--Well, then, either the principle
that the happy are made happy by the possession of justice and temperance,
and the miserable miserable by the possession of vice, must be refuted, or,
if it is granted, what will be the consequences? All the consequences
which I drew before, Callicles, and about which you asked me whether I was
in earnest when I said that a man ought to accuse himself and his son and
his friend if he did anything wrong, and that to this end he should use his
rhetoric--all those consequences are true. And that which you thought that
Polus was led to admit out of modesty is true, viz., that, to do injustice,
if more disgraceful than to suffer, is in that degree worse; and the other
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: been as largely owning to agitation at the re-opening
the subject of her separation from her husband as to
the hard work. She lay in a state of percipience
without volition, and the rustle of the straw and the
cutting of the ears by the others had the weight of
bodily touches.
She could hear from her corner, in addition to these
noises, the murmur of their voices. She felt certain
that they were continuing the subject already broached,
but their voices were so low that she could not catch
the words. At last Tess grew more and more anxious to
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
