| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: that guests don't come to these rooms. They're strictly
private. It isn't MY rule, ladies, but if you will step down
to the parlor--"
Mrs. Hutchins' face turned purple. She got up in a hurry.
"I'm here with Miss Jennings on a purely personal matter," she
said furiously. "How dare you turn us out?"
"Nonsense, Minnie!" said Miss Patty. "I'll go when I'm ready."
"Rule of the house," I remarked, and going over to the door I
stood holding it open. There wasn't any such rule, but I had to
get them out; they had Mr. Pierce driven into a corner and
yelling for help.
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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 Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: is only a condition, and not that sorrow which becomes
exaggerated to the point of despair, thanks to idleness and
satiety. The cow has not that reasoning faculty which would
enable it to ask the why. Why endure all these tortures? What
was the use of so much love, if the little ones were to die? The
cow has no logic which tells it to have no more children, and, if
any come accidentally, to neither love nor nurse them, that it
may not suffer. But our wives reason, and reason in this way,
and that is why I said that, when a man does not live as a man,
he is beneath the animal."
"But then, how is it necessary to act, in your opinion, in order
The Kreutzer Sonata |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: morals, articles of belief, artistic tastes, and religions; we
are prepared as no other age has ever been for a carnival in the
grand style, for the most spiritual festival--laughter and
arrogance, for the transcendental height of supreme folly and
Aristophanic ridicule of the world. Perhaps we are still
discovering the domain of our invention just here, the domain
where even we can still be original, probably as parodists of the
world's history and as God's Merry-Andrews,--perhaps, though
nothing else of the present have a future, our laughter itself
may have a future!
224. The historical sense (or the capacity for divining quickly
Beyond Good and Evil |
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 Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: the foremost place; he treats his person as if it were foreign to him,
and yet that person is preserved. Is it not because he has no
personal and private ends, that therefore such ends are realised?
8. 1. The highest excellence is like (that of) water. The excellence
of water appears in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying,
without striving (to the contrary), the low place which all men
dislike. Hence (its way) is near to (that of) the Tao.
2. The excellence of a residence is in (the suitability of) the place;
that of the mind is in abysmal stillness; that of associations is in
their being with the virtuous; that of government is in its securing
good order; that of (the conduct of) affairs is in its ability; and
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