| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: not be returned.
183. "I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but
because I can no longer believe in you."
184. There is a haughtiness of kindness which has the appearance
of wickedness.
185. "I dislike him."--Why?--"I am not a match for him."--Did any
one ever answer so?
CHAPTER V
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS
186. The moral sentiment in Europe at present is perhaps as
subtle, belated, diverse, sensitive, and refined, as the "Science
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: to protect the rights of individuals in the interior of distant States.
They must have the power to protect themselves, or they will go unprotected,
spite of all the laws the Federal government can put upon the national
statute-book.
Slavery, like all other great systems of wrong, founded in the depths
of human selfishness, and existing for ages, has not neglected its own
conservation. It has steadily exerted an influence upon all around
it favorable to its own continuance. And to-day it is so strong
that it could exist, not only without law, but even against law.
Custom, manners, morals, religion, are all on its side everywhere
in the South; and when you add the ignorance and servility
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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 Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Not making. Ruin'd! ruin'd! the sea roars
Ruin: a fearful night!'
`Not fearful; fair,'
Said the good wife, `if every star in heaven
Can make it fair: you do but bear the tide.
Had you ill dreams?'
`O yes,' he said, `I dream'd
Of such a tide swelling toward the land,
And I from out the boundless outer deep
Swept with it to the shore, and enter'd one
Of those dark caves that run beneath the cliffs.
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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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: colleague, a worthy man, but not energetic enough as a general. And
under this commander, who entrusted him with the highest and most
important commissions, he rose at once to reputation and to power.
He subdued by arms most part of the Alpine barbarians; and when there
was a scarcity in the armies, he took that care upon himself, and
brought in such a store of provisions, as not only to furnish the
soldiers of Catulus with abundance, but likewise to supply Marius.
This, as he writes himself, wounded Marius to the very heart. So
slight and childish were the first occasions and motives of that
enmity between them, which, passing afterwards through a long course
of civil bloodshed and incurable divisions to find its end in
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