| 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: like a bite thereby. Yea! and Nay!--they seem to him opposed to
morality; he loves, on the contrary, to make a festival to his
virtue by a noble aloofness, while perhaps he says with
Montaigne: "What do I know?" Or with Socrates: "I know that I
know nothing." Or: "Here I do not trust myself, no door is open
to me." Or: "Even if the door were open, why should I enter
immediately?" Or: "What is the use of any hasty hypotheses? It
might quite well be in good taste to make no hypotheses at all.
Are you absolutely obliged to straighten at once what is crooked?
to stuff every hole with some kind of oakum? Is there not time
enough for that? Has not the time leisure? Oh, ye demons, can ye
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: from a normal person.
There is absolutely nothing of significance in the heredity,
according to the accounts received by us. All the grandparents
are still alive in the old country. They are small townspeople
of good reputation. Epilepsy, insanity, and feeblemindedness are
stoutly denied and are probably absent in near relatives. The
father is a staunch citizen who feels keenly the disgrace of the
present situation. He is a hard working clerk. We early learned
the mother was not to be relied upon. Our best evidence of this
came from Gertrude. She told us she had always been accustomed
to hearing lies in her own household. According to the father
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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 Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: spun gold, and her eyes like pools in a river; and the King gave
her a castle upon the sea beach, with a terrace, and a court of the
hewn stone, and four towers at the four corners. Here she dwelt
and grew up, and had no care for the morrow, and no power upon the
hour, after the manner of simple men.
It befell that she walked one day by the beach of the sea, when it
was autumn, and the wind blew from the place of rains; and upon the
one hand of her the sea beat, and upon the other the dead leaves
ran. This was the loneliest beach between two seas, and strange
things had been done there in the ancient ages. Now the King's
daughter was aware of a crone that sat upon the beach. The sea
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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 Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: Our members are seen to be a part of us.
Besides, the earth, when of a sudden shook
By the big thunder, doth with her motion shake
All that's above her- which she ne'er could do
By any means, were earth not bounden fast
Unto the great world's realms of air and sky:
For they cohere together with common roots,
Conjoined both, even from their earliest age,
In linked unison. Aye, seest thou not
That this most subtle energy of soul
Supports our body, though so heavy a weight,-
Of The Nature of Things |
