| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: He is to go to the play to realise an artistic temperament. He is
to go to the play to gain an artistic temperament. He is not the
arbiter of the work of art. He is one who is admitted to
contemplate the work of art, and, if the work be fine, to forget in
its contemplation and the egotism that mars him - the egotism of
his ignorance, or the egotism of his information. This point about
the drama is hardly, I think, sufficiently recognised. I can quite
understand that were 'Macbeth' produced for the first time before a
modern London audience, many of the people present would strongly
and vigorously object to the introduction of the witches in the
first act, with their grotesque phrases and their ridiculous words.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: region for a thousand centuries or so."
"In that case, O REVOOR," says I.
I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes and
wished I was in the booking-office of my own section. The very
next instant a voice I knew sung out in a business kind of a way -
"A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size 13, for
Cap'n Eli Stormfield, of San Francisco! - make him out a clean bill
of health, and let him in."
I opened my eyes. Sure enough, it was a Pi Ute Injun I used to
know in Tulare County; mighty good fellow - I remembered being at
his funeral, which consisted of him being burnt and the other
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