| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: have an element of limitation. Sense or passion are too much for the 'dry
light' of intelligence which mingles with them and becomes discoloured by
them. Imagination is often at war with reason and fact. The concentration
of the mind on a single object, or on a single aspect of human nature,
overpowers the orderly perception of the whole. Yet the feelings too bring
truths home to the minds of many who in the way of reason would be
incapable of understanding them. Reflections of this kind may have been
passing before Plato's mind when he describes the poet as inspired, or
when, as in the Apology, he speaks of poets as the worst critics of their
own writings--anybody taken at random from the crowd is a better
interpreter of them than they are of themselves. They are sacred persons,
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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 Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: "Ah, you're too young to believe me, if I were to tell you;
though you're intelligent enough to understand."
"What does, then?"
"Why, the hold of the things we all think we could do without.
Habits--they outstand the Pyramids. Comforts, luxuries, the
atmosphere of ease ... above all, the power to get away from
dulness and monotony, from constraints and uglinesses. You
chose that power, instinctively, before you were even grown up;
and so did Nick. And the only difference between you is that
he's had the sense to see sooner than you that those are the
things that last, the prime necessities."
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