| 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: quite the same world), at least with much of Ibsen's power of
penetrating its illusions and idolatries, and with all Swift's horror
of its cruelty and uncleanliness.
Now it happens to some men with these powers that they are forced to
impose their fullest exercise on the world because they cannot produce
popular work. Take Wagner and Ibsen for instance! Their earlier
works are no doubt much cheaper than their later ones; still, they
were not popular when they were written. The alternative of doing
popular work was never really open to them: had they stooped they
would have picked up less than they snatched from above the people's
heads. But Handel and Shakespear were not held to their best in this
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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 Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: and to reason for the power of discerning that same good--if man
cannot find truth by that method, by what method shall he find it?
And thus it happened that, though these philosophers and
encyclopaedists were not men of science, they were at least the
heralds and the coadjutors of science.
We may call them, and justly, dreamers, theorists, fanatics. But we
must recollect that one thing they meant to do, and did. They
recalled men to facts; they bid them ask of everything they saw--
What are the facts of the case? Till we know the facts, argument is
worse than useless.
Now the habit of asking for the facts of the case must deliver men
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