| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: artist should paint only what he sees. The qualities that he
sought for in a picture were composition, beauty and dignity of
line, richness of colour, and imaginative power. Upon the other
hand, he was not a doctrinaire. 'I hold that no work of art can be
tried otherwise than by laws deduced from itself: whether or not
it be consistent with itself is the question.' This is one of his
excellent aphorisms. And in criticising painters so different as
Landseer and Martin, Stothard and Etty, he shows that, to use a
phrase now classical, he is trying 'to see the object as in itself
it really is.'
However, as I pointed out before, he never feels quite at his ease
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: rebel Kirghiz."
"If the Kirghiz descend the Irtish, the route to Irkutsk
will not be safe," observed his neighbor. "Besides, yester-
day I wanted to send a telegram to Krasnoiarsk, and it
could not be forwarded. It's to be feared that before long
the Tartar columns will have isolated Eastern Siberia."
"In short, little father," continued the first speaker,
"these merchants have good reason for being uneasy about
their trade and transactions. After requisitioning the
horses, they will take the boats, carriages, every means of
transport, until presently no one will be allowed to take even
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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 Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: does prevent the refutation from being shouted. Mr Harris, the
deep-voiced, refuses to be silenced. He dismisses with proper
contempt the stupidity which places an outrageous construction on
Shakespear's apologies in the sonnets for neglecting that "perfect
ceremony" of love which consists in returning calls and making
protestations and giving presents and paying the trumpery attentions
which men of genius always refuse to bother about, and to which touchy
people who have no genius attach so much importance. No leader who
had not been tampered with by the psychopathic monomaniacs could ever
put any construction but the obvious and innocent one on these
passages. But the general vocabulary of the sonnets to Pembroke (or
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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 Hiero by Xenophon: Since then, by aid of equal ministrations, you are privileged to win
not equal but far deeper gratitude: it would seem to follow,
considering the vastly wider sphere of helpfulness which lies before
you as administrators, and the far grander scale of your largesses, I
say it naturally pertains to you to find yourselves much more beloved
than ordinary mortals; or if not, why not?
Hiero took up the challenge and without demur made answer: For this
good reason, best of poets, necessity constrains us, far more than
ordinary people, to be busybodies. We are forced to meddle with
concerns which are the very fount and springhead of half the hatreds
of mankind.
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