| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: gaped and stared. Then the Demon began to drive the needle like a
spark of fire--the like was never seen in all the seven kingdoms,
for the clothes seemed to make themselves.
At last, at the end of a little while, the Demon stood up and
brushed his hands. "They are done," said he, and thereupon he
instantly vanished. But the Tailor cared little for that, for
upon the bench there lay such a suit of clothes of silk and satin
stuff, sewed with threads of gold and silver and set with jewels,
as the eyes of man never saw before; and the Tailor packed them
up and marched off with them himself to the prime-minister.
The prime-minister wore the clothes to court that very day, and
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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 Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: exploitation involves, and the self-respect and social esteem
which its success wins, effect an improvement in Alberic's own
character which neither Marx nor Wagner appear to have foreseen.
He discovers that to be a dull, greedy, narrow-minded
money-grubber is not the way to make money on a large scale; for
though greed may suffice to turn tens into hundreds and even
hundreds into thousands, to turn thousands into hundreds of
thousands requires magnanimity and a will to power rather than to
pelf. And to turn thousands into millions, Alberic must make
himself an earthly providence for masses of workmen: he must
create towns and govern markets. In the meantime, Fafair,
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