| 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: their art, their domain for invention. The profound reverence for
age and for tradition--all law rests on this double reverence,--
the belief and prejudice in favour of ancestors and unfavourable
to newcomers, is typical in the morality of the powerful; and if,
reversely, men of "modern ideas" believe almost instinctively in
"progress" and the "future," and are more and more lacking in
respect for old age, the ignoble origin of these "ideas" has
complacently betrayed itself thereby. A morality of the ruling
class, however, is more especially foreign and irritating to
present-day taste in the sternness of its principle that one has
duties only to one's equals; that one may act towards beings of a
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: suit with an absurdly and agreeably broad turn-down linen
collar, and frivolous ankles above athletic shoes. The High
Bridge crosses the Mississippi, mounting from low banks to a
palisade of cliffs. Far down beneath it on the St. Paul side,
upon mud flats, is a wild settlement of chicken-infested gardens
and shanties patched together from discarded sign-boards,
sheets of corrugated iron, and planks fished out of the river.
Carol leaned over the rail of the bridge to look down at this
Yang-tse village; in delicious imaginary fear she shrieked that
she was dizzy with the height; and it was an extremely human
satisfaction to have a strong male snatch her back to safety,
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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 The Jolly Corner by Henry James: day; unless indeed he were to reckon as he had sometimes, since his
repatriation, found himself feeling; in which case he would have
lived longer than is often allotted to man. It would have taken a
century, he repeatedly said to himself, and said also to Alice
Staverton, it would have taken a longer absence and a more averted
mind than those even of which he had been guilty, to pile up the
differences, the newnesses, the queernesses, above all the
bignesses, for the better or the worse, that at present assaulted
his vision wherever he looked.
The great fact all the while, however, had been the
incalculability; since he HAD supposed himself, from decade to
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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 All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,
Destroy our friends, and after weep their dust:
Our own love waking cries to see what's done,
While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon.
Be this sweet Helen's knell, and now forget her.
Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin:
The main consents are had; and here we'll stay
To see our widower's second marriage-day.
COUNTESS.
Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless!
Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cesse!
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