| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: the minds of many men, when they are heavily disappointed in the
main purposes of their life, to feel, and perhaps in warning,
perhaps in mockery, to declare, that life itself is a vanity.
Because it has disappointed them, they think its nature is of
disappointment always, or at best, of pleasure that can be grasped
by imagination only; that the cloud of it has no strength nor fire
within; but is a painted cloud only, to be delighted in, yet
despised. You know how beautifully Pope has expressed this
particular phase of thought:-
"Meanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays,
These painted clouds that beautify our days;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: in the land. Virtues! Who knows what the virtues are? Not you.
Not I. Not any one. It is well for our vanity that we slay the
criminal, for if we suffered him to live he might show us what we
had gained by his crime. It is well for his peace that the saint
goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his
harvest.
ERNEST. Gilbert, you sound too harsh a note. Let us go back to
the more gracious fields of literature. What was it you said?
That it was more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it?
GILBERT (after a pause). Yes: I believe I ventured upon that
simple truth. Surely you see now that I am right? When man acts
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