| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: at it. May I?
CECILY. Oh no. [Puts her hand over it.] You see, it is simply a
very young girl's record of her own thoughts and impressions, and
consequently meant for publication. When it appears in volume form
I hope you will order a copy. But pray, Ernest, don't stop. I
delight in taking down from dictation. I have reached 'absolute
perfection'. You can go on. I am quite ready for more.
ALGERNON. [Somewhat taken aback.] Ahem! Ahem!
CECILY. Oh, don't cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should
speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don't know how to spell a
cough. [Writes as ALGERNON speaks.]
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: ancient as well as in modern times, who could never receive the natural
impression of Homer, or of any other book which they read. The argument of
Socrates, in which he picks out the apparent inconsistencies and
discrepancies in the speech and actions of Achilles, and the final paradox,
'that he who is true is also false,' remind us of the interpretation by
Socrates of Simonides in the Protagoras, and of similar reasonings in the
first book of the Republic. The discrepancies which Socrates discovers in
the words of Achilles are perhaps as great as those discovered by some of
the modern separatists of the Homeric poems...
At last, Socrates having caught Hippias in the toils of the voluntary and
involuntary, is obliged to confess that he is wandering about in the same
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