| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: of Shakespear, written after his death, and is clearly meant to
heighten the impression of Shakespear's prodigious natural endowments
by pointing out that they were not due to scholastic acquirements.
Now there is a sense in which it is true enough that Shakespear was
too little esteemed by his own generation, or, for the matter of that,
by any subsequent generation. The bargees on the Regent's Canal do
not chant Shakespear's verses as the gondoliers in Venice are said to
chant the verses of Tasso (a practice which was suspended for some
reason during my stay in Venice: at least no gondolier ever did it in
my hearing). Shakespear is no more a popular author than Rodin is a
popular sculptor or Richard Strauss a popular composer. But
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: spoilt child in every sense of the word; but still a spoilt child who
justified paternal and maternal illusions. Maternal, be it said, for
Victurnien's aunt was truly a mother to him; and yet, however careful
and tender she may be that never bore a child, there is something
lacking in her motherhood. A mother's second sight cannot be acquired.
An aunt, bound to her nursling by ties of such pure affection as
united Mlle. Armande to Victurnien, may love as much as a mother
might; may be as careful, as kind, as tender, as indulgent, but she
lacks the mother's instinctive knowledge when and how to be severe;
she has no sudden warnings, none of the uneasy presentiments of the
mother's heart; for a mother, bound to her child from the beginnings
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