| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: but geometric figures. That, of course, is not true; because with a
black line which has no color we can represent the human form. This
proves that our art is made up, like nature, of an infinite number of
elements. Drawing gives the skeleton, and color gives the life; but
life without the skeleton is a far more incomplete thing than the
skeleton without the life. But there is a higher truth still,--namely,
that practice and observation are the essentials of a painter; and
that if reason and poesy persist in wrangling with the tools, the
brushes, we shall be brought to doubt, like Frenhofer, who is as much
excited in brain as he is exalted in art. A sublime painter, indeed;
but he had the misfortune to be born rich, and that enables him to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: to goodness he won't come up. Fathers should be neither seen nor
heard. That is the only proper basin for family life. Mothers are
different. Mothers are darlings. [Throws himself down into a chair,
picks up a paper and begins to read it.]
[Enter LORD CAVERSHAM.]
LORD CAVERSHAM. Well, sir, what are you doing here? Wasting your
time as usual, I suppose?
LORD GORING. [Throws down paper and rises.] My dear father, when
one pays a visit it is for the purpose of wasting other people's
time, not one's own.
LORD CAVERSHAM. Have you been thinking over what I spoke to you
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: subside. The old landmarks, by whose disappearance I had
measured its advance, here a crag, there a brave pine tree,
now began, in the inverse order, to make their reappearance
into daylight. I judged all danger of the fog was over.
This was not Noah's flood; it was but a morning spring, and
would now drift out seaward whence it came. So, mightily
relieved, and a good deal exhilarated by the sight, I went
into the house to light the fire.
I suppose it was nearly seven when I once more mounted the
platform to look abroad. The fog ocean had swelled up
enormously since last I saw it; and a few hundred feet below
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: indeed, he regards his own moral character with the sincere
complacency of a hero of melodrama. The amiable devotee of
romance and beauty is shewn at an age which brings out the
futilization which these worships are apt to produce if they are
made the staple of life instead of the sauce. The attitude of
the clever young people to their elders is faithfully represented
as one of pitiless ridicule and unsympathetic criticism, and
forms a spectacle incredible to those who, when young, were not
cleverer than their nearest elders, and painful to those
sentimental parents who shrink from the cruelty of youth, which
pardons nothing because it knows nothing. In short, the
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